JUNE 8.-The business of the caravan being closed, and all the purchases and sales, which had occasioned our detention here, effected, we were preparing for our departure to-night, when information was brought us, by some people who had themselves been robbed on the road, that the Beni-Saood, or Wahabees, had made an incursion to the northward, and were now encamped, in considerable numbers, by the way.

These predatory Arabs were represented to be, in their persons, dress, manner of living, and religious tenets, every thing that was hideous, frightful, and savage; their extraordinary capacity of going, like their camels, two or three days without food or drink,

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struck me, however, as the most surprising; but when I expressed my doubts on this head, it was confirmed by the united voices of all the assembly. In war, they are said to mount two on a camel, and to use, alternately, muskets, swords, and spears; but the chiefs, the look-outs, and the couriers, are mounted singly, and perform journeys of a hundred miles without once alighting. A story is told of one of these couriers having gone from the neighbourhood of Aleppo all the way to Bagdad, in five days, upon the same animal, without once dismounting, but merely giving his beast a moment to snatch a few dry herbs by the way, and supporting himself by a little dough of flour and butter, with the small quantity of water contained in a lamb's skin, hung from the camel's side.

Many of the tribes of the Great Desert, who have embraced the religion of the Wahābees, are said to be strangers even to the use of bread. It is affirmed, that they subsist entirely on dried dates and the milk of their camels, with the flesh of such of these animals as die of sickness or old age. These, it is said, they often eat in a raw state; and it is agreed, on all hands, that they have neither sheep, goats, nor other cattle, except their camels: their deserts furnishing neither water nor other sustenance for them.*

* The intelligent author of the " Description du Pachalik de Bagdad," which contains the most recent and authentic account of this powerful sect, uniting, in his time, nearly all the tribes of the Great Desert, in speaking of the Wahābees, says :-" Cette horde, qui'dans ses commencemens n'étoit qu'un ramas de misérables familles, n'a cessé de prendre des accroissemens rapides, par l'adjonction successive de différentes tribus nomades disséminées dans les vastes déserts de l'Arabie; de manière que toute cette grande région, les domaines de l'Imam de Mascate, les côtes du Golfe Persique, et les îles de Bahrein, sont aujourd'hui soumises à sa domination. Il ne lui manque plus que de pousser ses excursions en Mésopotamie, pour répandre l'epouvante jusqu'aux portes de Constantinople. Le chef de cette nouvelle puissance jouit d'une autorité sans bornes ses sujets lui vouent une obéissance aveugle, et un mot de sa part suffit poure faire marcher dans le besoin des milliers de combattans, habitués à verser le sang, avides de depouilles, qui comptent pour rien les dangers et la mort, et croyent mériter la palme du martyre en expirant les armes à la main pour la cause de leur doctrine." p. 40, 41.

In a separate "Notice sur les Wahabis," attached to the Memoir of Mons.

Notwithstanding the permanent state of want in which these people live, being destitute of what, by others, are considered the bare necessaries of life, they marry and multiply exceedingly; and their incursions upon the territories of others are chiefly in search of new pastures for their flocks, and food for their attendants. During the winter, they retire into the depths of their own deserts, where the few shrubs that exist are then found, and where water is occasionally to be met with. At the commencement of summer, when the violent heats burn up every blade of verdure, and exhaust the sources of their wells, they disperse themselves over the edge of the cultivated country, scouring the eastern borders of Syria, between Palmyra and Damascus, and the country east of the Jordan and the Dead Sea. They come up here also, upon the southern edge of Mesopotamia, where they encamp in the spring, to the terror of all caravans passing this way, as, if their force be sufficiently strong, they never fail to plunder them.*

Rousseau, the following description of these singular people, is a corroboration of the general accuracy of the representations here made:—“ Au reste, d'une complexion saine et robuste, ils sont accoutumés dès l'enfance aux travaux d'une vie toujours active; l'air pur qu'ils respirent, la chaleur du climat, la privation de toute espèce de superfluités sont en eux les principes d'une santé vigoureuse et à l'épreuve des fatigues: graves, phlegmatiques, fanatiques et grossiers, leur orgueil est autant dans leurs procédés que dans leurs sentimens; inviolablement attachés aux usages de leur pays, ils condamnent et méprisent ceux des autres peuples, et rejettent dédaigneusement tout ce qui est au dessus de la sphère de leurs connoissances. La force de leur tempérament et leur sobriété singulière, se font remarquer surtout dans les expéditions qu'ils entreprennent; ils n'emportent alors avec eux que deux outres pleines, l'une d'eau, l'autre de farine, qu'ils chargent sur leurs dromadaires: quand ils sont pressés par la faim, ils délayent un peu de cette farine dans une écuellée d'eau et l'avalent sans aucune autre préparation; souvent aussi quand l'eau leur manque, ils se désaltèrent avec l'urine de leurs montures. Accoutumés comme ils le sont à toute espèce de privations, ils peuvent résister à la faim et à la soif pendant des jours entiers.”—Notice sur les Wahabis, p. 149, 150.

* “Quant à leurs qualités militaires, on doit en prendre l'idée dans le fanatisme même qui les inspire. Ils affrontent avec un courage incroyable les dangers et la mort, et rien ne sauroit ralentir leur fougueuse intrépidité, parce qu'ils attaquent leurs ennemis dans l'espoir de recevoir, en mourant les armes à la main, la palme du martyre."-Notice sur les Wahabis, p. 150.

They do not, however, destroy the lives of their captives, except when resistance is made, or blood shed on their side, when they are desperate in their revenge. They suffer to pass free all commodities that are useless to them, such as paper, indigo, unworked metals, (excepting only gold or silver,) and all heavy wares not worth the labour of removal. It is related of one of these Wahabees, engaged in the plunder of a caravan, that on being asked what were the things contained in some small barrels, (which were full of cochineal,) he replied, they were the seeds of coffee, which is forbidden among the Wahabees, and therefore could not be retained. As the barrels, however, were useful to the captors, for water, or other common purposes, the valuable cochineal was scattered on the sands, and the empty casks carefully preserved.*

The Wahabees, however, from having had some communication with towns, know the value of gold and silver, pearls, and rich stuffs, which sometimes form the ladings of caravans; and these they plunder, to barter for other articles more suited to their own wants, which they effect by emissaries sent into the large cities around them, where they are unknown and unsuspected.

Such were the accounts given us of the men, through whose very tents it was said we had now to pass, or wait until they had changed the place of their encampment; men who multiplied their species beyond all credibility, if one could listen to report, and this too amidst privations of every kind; while, throughout the rest of Turkey, where the means of life are cheap and abundant, the number of the human race is thought generally to be on the decline.

In consequence of the information we had thus received, a council was held among the parties interested in the safety of the

* A similar anecdote is related by Captain Horsburgh, in his East India Directory; where, speaking of some part of the coast of Africa, near Madagascar, he says, the natives refused guineas, which were offered in payment for a supply of cattle; but brought down a quantity of fresh provisions, fowls, vegetables, &c. for an old gilt anchor button, because it had an eye, and could be applied to some useful purpose, which the others, without it, could not.

caravan, to consult on the measures necessary to be taken for its security. Like a number of sea-captains, all bound to the same port, assembling to petition the Admiralty for a convoy, when their track is infested by privateers, so these camel-drivers and land traders thought it best to apply to the government of Orfah for an escort as far as Mardin, offering a fixed sum of money for the force required. The government, however, had the honesty to confess, that no force which it could send would be at all equal to the protection of the caravan, the number of the Arabs being estimated at a hundred thousand at least; and they therefore advised our waiting until they should disappear, or take another road.

On a second consultation, it was determined to despatch a messenger to Sheikh Abu Aioobe Ibin Temar, Pasha of the tribe of BeniMelān. The station of this chief was in the open plains, called, in Arabic, "Berreeah," and distant about two days' journey, or from forty to fifty miles. This chief, from having under his command about twenty thousand horse, received regular tribute from all the caravans which passed near his domains, and was, in every sense, a very powerful man. When, therefore, a letter was addressed, imploring, in the most humble terms, his august protection through the camp of the robbers, his own justice and magnanimity were extolled, while the marauding character of the intruders on his dominion was painted in the darkest colours,—and yet the only real difference between them seemed to be, that the one was a stationary robber, and the others roving ones; for in this very application, for his protection against the stronger enemy, it was carefully added, that an adequate compensation would be given to his followers for their convoy.

* The difficulty of successfully resisting or subduing these Desert hordes, and the advantages they would possess as invaders of cultivated territories, if they possessed but tactics and discipline, is thus powerfully shewn." Il ne manque aux Wahabis pour être un peuple invincible et capable de soumettre toute l'Asie à ses lois, que de joindre à leurs qualités physiques et morales, les connoissances de la tactique et de la discipline militaire, dont ils sont dépourvus jusqu'à ce jour. En les acquérant, ils seroient en