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Show life of Bedouin Same as Before Moses ? H toical People Have Message for U. S. Ka7Z'rS0Af-6Uia. r. c. elus, oh ares cmcl, "f Sjjr ous &oc-t train moving out in Jsrio , SwMCO: IP.RAHIM OK! MY CAMEL, oo WAtM HEBRON. a jPT. SCOTT-HlGGiNS , SHF.IKH'i AMD UNDE THE 5HAD0V OP A GREW ROCK IK THE WA&l ;AMEL CORPS, ESCORT, READY TO MOVE HtBROM.- CApT. .. SCOTT-HI fcdlNS IN CENTRE AN& JUT TO SWAI. photos y w.t. tu-ii.' 1IX iHF;iKHS ABOUT KIM. CAMEL SEf?6EANT W ,! W'vyrfS mti TWO akac camel -police: sergeants beuw. Nevertheless, ho was absolved from all manual work arrl treated as the dlgrittary that he was, and for stateilneas he could have posed for Abraham's portrait. Democratically, Demo-cratically, he sat with his fellows around their campflres end shared their food and lay down beside them at night. Vor that matter, the Bedouins are as democratic as the early Tsrelites. Last eound heard at n'.ght and first in the morning Is the hum of the voices of the Arabs. Their one entertainment is conversation. Movies and vaudeville have never reached them. They have nowhere to go for amusement. Talk and songs are their commonest diversion. What can these men of barren lives find to discuss so interminably? That question leads us straight Into the heart of the preservation of Bedouin tradltlonH and lore and customs throughout through-out the centuries and millenniums. The tales of the elders are transmitted at campflre conversations, with young and old listening. Legends of the mountains, stories of saints and heroes, narratives or battles all are made amlllar to the ears of every Arab, and he In turn tells them over or sings them to himself, for the Arab improvises songs upon every topic. Without a written literature these tribesmen of marvelous memory preserve history, religion, genealogy, professional, social and commercial codes, as well as jests, proverbs and fairy lore, all by oral transmission. It Is understandable that family and tribal traditions would be paramount with the Bedouins in the conditions con-ditions of their life, even as such things are negligible In the modern American family, with its rush and individualism and beguilements. The Arab mind holds little, but it holds that little fast. In the Black Tents. Like some rich Americans, the Bedouins move their homes with the seasons. In the summer they eamp In the wadys or ravines of the mountains, where the air is coolest and the pasturage best. In winter win-ter they pitch their black tents of goat's hair on the sands of the desert, where there Is always a certain amount of vegetable vege-table growth for their animals to feed upon. Moving is a simple matter with the Arabs, for even with the best of them household effects consist only of the home made goat's hair tent itself which in the case of the prosperous is divided by a curtain into men's apartment and women's quarter a few rugs, a cooking pot or two. a metal coffee pot and cups and a stone hand mill for grain. The family and live stock move on their own feet. Sheep, goats, camels and donkeys are the riches of the Arab. On the Sinai peninsula penin-sula there are novhorscs. Life could scarcely be more primitive. Nevertheless there are no more devoted home lovers than the Arabs. Their loyalty to familv and tribe is passionate, and to the death. Once the Sinai monks made it possible for a promising Bedouin youth to go to Alexandria that he might have a chance in the big world. He sent home frequent gifts of cotton and silks and coffee and tobacco and made his family tent one of affluence and luxury. Notwithstanding Not-withstanding all this the mother haunted the monastery, walling "Give me back my soul. What do we want with these things? We have enough without. Send bitck our son." And back he came, doffing dof-fing his city clothes and reverting straightway to the barren life of the black tent. No matter what their privileges, say those who know, the Bedouins aiwavs revert gladly to the manner of life that was old when Abraham crossed Sinai. The Dead Man on the Cliff. Almost as wild and free as the birds of the air, the Bedouins also suffer as do the creatures of nature. Because of the wide difference in temperature between day and night and the lack of bedding or warm clothing the people are greatly afflicted af-flicted with neuralgia and rheumatism, and malaria also is prevalent. "What do the Bedouins do when thev become ill?" I asked Pere Polycarpus, the hea'd of the Sinai monastery. "They remain ill, or else get well or die." was the succinct reply. "The, Influenza In-fluenza epidemic wrought terrible havoc among them. One entire village was wiped out." "Have they no physicians or medicine at all?" "None, except as we give them quinine or salts." "Kismet!" f"Tt is fate!") says the Arab, as he turns over and dies. Passing down through Wady Hebran, with precipitous mountains on either side, a chance met Bedouin, walking with us for sociability's sake, pointed out a ledge on which llee the sun-dried, body of a wayfarer. He had been overtaken with Illness and had died, and, unknown member mem-ber of some distant tribe, he had no one to conduct the usual mourning over him or to bury him in a rude stone carved grave. "How did It chance that he was all alone?" we asked. "Kismet!" replied the Arab,- passing on to more Interesting topics. Getting Rid of Lovers. Funerals, weddings, circumcision parties, par-ties, and a couple of annual religious festivals are the great social events in Bedouin life. Their songs and lore are full of love stories, hut actual marriage is a matter of arrangement between families. fami-lies. If the suitor is unacceptable the tcnl's father simply fixes the price he p.k for his daughter .it .n Impossibly high figure. Thus family feuds are avoided, avoid-ed, and everybody's face Is saved. Tn Europe tho bride must taka a dowry tD her husband; in Arabia the husband pays for the bride, Unchastlty is practical! unknown among Bedouin girls. Betrayal, like adultery, is punishable with death. The duty of vengeance falls upon father or brother or next of kin. The desert law of the blood debt "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" whewo sheds man's blood, his blood shall by man be shed" is older than the Mosaic enactments. The simple reason why there is so little homicide in the desert, despite the much quarreling, is that the family and the tribe are by most sacred obligations committed to exact the hlood debt. These ragged, dirty, 'gnorant. poverty-stricken dwellers In the wilderness have a code of honor as strict as any that ever obtained among Europeans In "the days of chivalry. That life need never be too barren for honor and courtesy and friendship and hospitality, and love of home is a lesson that the Bedouins have for the western world, which Is sometimes tempted to sell itfl spiritual Inheritance for mere material things. If the Arabs need our goods, who will say that we do not also need their philosophy? nplicity, Virtue and Adherence Ad-herence to His Code Are Maintained. BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS. ivripht, 1919, bv the New York Herald Company All Rights Reserved.) lyrigM, Canada, by the New York Herald Company.) cla! to the Salt Lake Tribune-New York Herald.) HE SINAI DESERT, July 5. This is "back to nature" indeed far, far, back, beyond the beginning of written history. Life here on this desert and amid the Sinai moun-i moun-i in practically as it was 3000 years re the days of Moses. The only ble change Is the possession of fire-( fire-( or swords by the wealthier men. rwlse the people and their life are as M were before the first pyramids were , the first monuments Inscribed or first cuneiform tablets written, r. ere Is no other such human per ;!'Ve on earth as this. Within .twenty-hours .twenty-hours from a steamship or express - i, with nil that it represents of mod-ch'l:!?.-iMnn, a mimV.iay find himself in a form of life that was an'cient :-p t'.:e first books of the Bible were L'li'!"!. Almost un Touched by the rcFsVf the centuries, unknowing and ;i:rinir concerning the great nations' and cities that have risen to power, the Bedouins Be-douins preserve their own customs, and dress, and laws, and manner of life. Their scheme of things has at least this merit It has outlasted all others. As I swing slowly along upon my camel there plods in front of me old Farhan, our guide, a venerable Arab whose face wears lines of dignity and kindliness and whose mien is that of a sheikh. He is proud of his responsible post as native leader of a group of foreigners, and with tact and skill he keeps the camel drivers up to the mark of our whims and ways. Farhan Is a stately figure, although hia entire raiment would not bring fifty cents on Baxter street. His outer garment Is a black abeyeh, or abba, old and rusty, but still a mark of distinction. Beneath it, rather ragged. Is his gallbieh. a once white garment with flowing sleeves, gathered gath-ered about the middle by a leather girdle. On his feet he wears, or else carries on his arm, two miserable scraps of leather, or fish skin, looped over by two cords, which pass for sandals. On his head is a turban cloth. That is all. Under the burning sun or beneath the -chilly moon this is all of Farhan's clothes or covering. cover-ing. One understands anew the Mosaic law against keeping a man's cloak overnight. over-night. Farhan's bed on the march Is the sand; his equipment only his garments, a water skin and a crooked stick. He typifies the consummate Arab art of doing without He knows how to travel light through life. In worldly goods he is poor he-yon he-yon rl the worst fears of the poorest westerner, west-erner, yet he is a gentleman, stately In carriage and gracious in speech beyond America's hope to match. He probably never bathes, for his world Is well nigh waterless. He cannot read or write and he is more ignorant of book knowledge than any 10-year-old boy in the United Slates; yet he Js wise with the wisdom of an old, old people. His skill in handling hand-ling his fellow Bedouins and Ind ealing. with foreigners Is what New York employers em-ployers pay high salaries for and do not always obtain. A Child of the Desert. My camel boy, Derwish, is another type of Arab. Of years he possesses something some-thing less than 12. Like hundreds of generations of his ancestors before him, Derwlsb Is thin and underfed. An Arab manages to live on a small portion of what would be a white man's rations normally; nor-mally; he goes to bed hungry. On this trip Derwish promptly attaches himself as supernumerary to Mohammed, our cook, and kitchen scraps soon fill out his meager frame. I wonder how many American boys know that by cracking the discarded bone of a piece of meat there may be found within a. toothsome and nutritious morsel? . All Arab boys know this, and all dogs. His days with the foreigners perceptibly put flesh upon his face and body. His raiment was even simpler than that of Farhan a thin cotton cot-ton chemise, through . which his figure showed, and another nondescript rag in which he wrapped his head when the sun was high and his body when he lay down on the sands or rock at night. As he walked Derwish sang or persisted In talking Arabic to me. He gathered spicy plants in the mountains for me to taste or smell and the flowers of the trail. When I wanted to trot my camel Derwish was tirelessly ready to run ahead of it. The capacity and endurance of this child argued for the success of Bedouin child training. Once, when-descending the steep side of a mountain on my camel, with no other members of the party within hall. I had a chance to test Derwish's resourcefulness. resourceful-ness. With a child's heedlessness he had persisted in walking on the upper side of the narrow trail, thus forcing the beast to the edge of the precipice, and the path was of slfppcry stones. Smiling rather grimly to myself at the possibilities possibili-ties of the situation, I was brought suddenly sud-denly to a sense of the realities by the forward slipping of my saddle, owing to the steep descent and somebody's failure to fasten it by the usual rope under the ta-il. Feeling the saddle slide, the camel gave one of his volcanic upheavals and went down to his foreknees and I went over his neck. Fortunately, at the moment mo-ment tho animal's head was turned Inward In-ward and 1 did not go over the precipice. preci-pice. Alone on the mountain, we two set about the task of reconstruction and repairs. re-pairs. I may have added strength to the proceedings in the lifting, tugging and tightening, but it was the amazing skill of the hard little hands of this boy. not yet in his teens, that really achieved the result. We finished the descent of the mountain uneventfully, to be met at the bottom by Farhan, who, with one of the soldiers, usually came to my camel at any destination to give a sort of grandstand finish to the arrival. Farhan Shocked. This time Farhan was told the story of our adventure. He was horror-stricken; his exclamations and motions of lamentation lamenta-tion that anvthing should have befallen the "Hodga" In his absence were amus-' inglv extravagant. Straightway on level ground, within a few hundred yards of the monastery he stopped the camel, reexamined re-examined the fastenings of the saddle and made all sorts of solicitous inquiries about my comfort, and then heaped tirades upon the guiltless head of little Derwish. the one member of the party who had really been on the job! On the forced march back to Tor. when I insisted upon taking the camel rope into mv own hand, to regulate the speed and direction of the animal as I pleased, Derwish. Der-wish. a tired little boy. was for part of the dav taken on the after-deck of one of our native-ridden ships of the desert. His squirming discomfort, as. without saddle or riding cloth, he maintained himself on the rear twelve inches of the sloping ;pine of the lumpy beast, was more amusing amus-ing to us than to him. Wriggle and twist as he did, he never complained, and a3 we drew near to camp he would insist upon leading my camel in state. That point touched his dignity. This art of standing things without complaint is Innate with the Arab. He is hardened to heat and cold. For the richest, rich-est, bed is but a rug upon the hard earth. Because he lives close to nature he -does not mind dirt. His food is unrelieved slmpltcltv poor bread, with possibly a little milk from the goats or camels, and verv occasionally meat. His luxuries are of fee and tobacco. Derwish scarcely ' Unw what to do with a package of candies can-dies T gave him when cigarets were being distributed to the men. The Arab teaches an overindulged world how little it may really pet along upon. Western standards of dress, food and housing are simply beyond his comprehension. compre-hension. He maintains the cardinal virtues vir-tues and a fair degree of happiness upon a quarter of what the pauper in America receives. His messasre to the world, shouted across the waste of his wilderness. wilder-ness. Is that freedom comes by the abil-Itv abil-Itv to do without things. He lives as untrammeled a life as the birds and the I Ibex, because his wants are few. Wealth Not Worshipped. .Merit is not a matter of possession In the eyt-s of the Bedouin, One of our j drivers was an old raan w'.th the dignity of ,t s'voi-d and a black outer cloak. That i abeyah was a:;o his tnrer garment. Ap-! Ap-! parently It was the only article of dres he possessed. Li the winds or beneath i ;he hot sun lie would travel nearly nude, i still he was a man of standing. ! Another one of our retainers wr3 a I brother of the sheikh of the sheikhs of S'nai. the chief man of the peninsula. I He fought for the Turks and is now a British prisoner. All the possessions of himself and family w ;re confiscated, so the nir-.n who rode with us had nothing |