Sometimes the camels will remain a day at the spring, and return on the third to camp, when they are obliged almost immediately to travel back again to the water. The number of these camels appeared to be countless, and they were driven like goats or sheep in herds, with chance of peeping at the strange Franjis | have only camels, and in autumn are often that the dispute arose. Soon after a spoilt obliged to send these more than a day's baby of eighteen months appeared in a journey into the 'Adwan lands to drink. dirty shirt and a gorgeous green jacket. It was affectionately kissed by all the men present, and then carried off with a lump of sugar by two handsome boys of nine or ten, each with his sling of hair in his hand, with which the young Bedawi is able to perform wonders. The Arab women enjoy far more free-out either bridle or saddle. To see perdom and consideration than do the wives and daughters of the peasantry. They salute the traveller with the Moslem formula, "Peace be upon you, O my brother;" and they rarely hide their faces at all, though some will hold a sleeve or head-veil between their teeth. Goblan would sometimes send his compliments to the mother as well as the father of any group of children we met. The women ride camels to the spring when the men are employed, and spin as they go, the dark wool with an ordinary spindle, but without a distaff, the hank being passed over the hand. They wear bracelets, a signet-ring, and even in some cases a jewel in the nose. The Arabs are not totally devoid of astronomical knowledge, as was found by Lieutenant Mantell in the course of conversations with his guides. The Milky Way they call Derb et Tibn, "the track of the chaff;" and the morning star and Pleiades (Tereiyeh) they also pointed out. N'ash, or the Great Bear, and el Mizân, "the Balance," or Orion, seem also to be known; and Aldebaran is called Nejm el Ghararah, "the deceitful star," because it is sometimes mistaken for the morning star. It is, of course, well known that our astronomical nomenclature is mainly Arabic, but this belongs to the civilization of Baghdad in the ninth century. The early Arabs of Yemen used to worship certain fixed stars, in addition to a few of the planets, including Keis or Sirius, Tay or Canopus, and Tasm or Aldebaran. The rising and setting of these and others was then supposed to be connected with the rain. It is not proposed here to repeat what has been written of the Bedawin in "Tent Work in Palestine," but something may be said of the riches and possessions of the Belka Arabs, which far surpass those of the small western tribes. The 'Adwân, who own lands tilled for them by the Ghawârneh and other inferior tribes, possess also sheep, goats, and cows in numbers; but the Beni Sakhr and 'Anazeh, living in the less well-watered districts, haps five hundred camels in a company, followed by other flocks of equal numbers descending to the spring, was an interesting sight. The grave elders stalked along with the sulky dignity which their owners seem to copy; the little colts, and sometimes the younger of the full-grown, executed the most extraordinary gambols with sprawling legs which seemed jointless and wooden. The man or boy in charge rode in front guiding his beast with a switch, and shouting "Ya-ho! Yaho!" all day long. The chorus of grunts and grumbles from the flocks of these beasts at the water was ceaseless by day. We once saw a negro woman driving a young dromedary without any bridle. She dropped her spindle, and was obliged to stop: as the beast knelt she jumped off and ran back like lightning, but before she could get back, the dromedary with many grunts was on its legs again, and she had only time to seize it by the neck. Here she hung, her toes touching the ground, her wool in her teeth, and was thus carried for some hundred yards, until by constantly striking with her switch on the dromedary's neck, she stopped it, obliged it to kneel, and mounting with great dexterity, cantered off in triumph. The Arabs only leave two of the mother camel's udders for the colt to suck, tying up the others with slips of wood. The colt is weaned at eight months of age, and the rest of the milk is drunk by the tribe. This is the only use ever made apparently of the camel, save in moving camp, or when one is killed for the feast. There are many thousand camels belonging to each tribe, and, like sheep or goats, they are in fact a clumsy substitute for money, which is almost unknown in these districts. The Bedawi carries about his capital in the shape of camels, but his wealth is mainly useful for the influence and consideration which it gains him, rather than on account of intrinsic value. The ordinary price of a baggage-camel varies from £12 to £20, and a hajin or blood animal for riding from £30 to £200. Calculated on this proportion, the money hin, to the depredations of thieves, even when no raid from a distance need be feared. We found that the valleys near the Dead Sea swarmed with these bandits, outlaws of every tribe, who are obliged to migrate to the mountains in winter when the camps are in the valley. Sometimes they are found dead of hunger in the snow; and on one occasion two of them were seen by our party enjoying a feast off a fox which they had shot. Goblan used nightly to perambulate the great Hadânieh circle at W. Jideid within which we were encamped, addressing in stern tones imaginary or unseen robbers with these words: "Come out, you cowards.! may Allah destroy you! there are no goats or cows here, but only men and bullets." He erected a pillar of stones six feet high, as a dummy-guard or bogy at night; and, generally speaking, he and his men seemed to live in great fear of these thieves. our immunity from loss was due chiefly to the vigilance of our dogs and to the defensive arrangements of the camp. The straying donkeys of our careless muleteer were snapped up before we had been a week in the country. The camels and other property are marked or branded on the neck and flank with the wusm or "sign" of the tribe. We collected a great many of these signs, and found that each had a distinctive name. The original 'Adwân mark is a vertical stroke, but the younger or Nimr branch bear two, and the 'Abbâd a yet younger offshoothave three, thus approaching the system of heraldic differences. This mark is called the mutluk. This apprehension was not by any The original Beni Sakhr mark is the means groundless, for during the moonmihmasah, or "spoon" for roasting cof-less nights we were constantly attacked fee, a circle with a vertical stroke below. by thieves who endeavored to steal our The Fâîz family bear this with two short animals. More than once we pursued strokes on the right, extending horizon- them and fired small shot at them, but tally from the vertical stroke, and this variation is called tuweikeh, the "little bracelet." The Kurshân have a circle with a dot, and one family of this subdivision of the Beni Sakhr has also two strokes by the circle. The Khâdir have a mark not unlike the Cheth in square Hebrew called el bab, "the door." They are a subdivision of the 'Anazeh, whose general mark is a sort of narrow C laid sidewise. The Jibbûr (a division of the Beni Sakhr) seem to use a cross, though this is not quite certain, and also the "raven's foot," a rounded trident like the Indian trisul caste-mark. All these marks are simple enough, but it should be noted that the mihmasah is exactly like the Himyaritic Koph; the mutluk is the Aleph; the "raven's foot" is very near the Cheth of the same alphabet. The connection may be a real one, but the traveller is liable to make the mistake into which at least three careful observers are known to have fallen, of diligently copying what he supposes to be a Himyaritic inscription, but which is really a collection of various tribe-marks scrawled either by shepherds when idle, or deliberately placed on stones in buildings and elsewhere where treasure is believed to lie hid, and is thus claimed by the tribe in whose territory the spot may be included. The Arabs are subject, as are the fella Near the Jordan valley Goblan showed us a cairn erected over the body of a thief who was shot at night near the camp some quarter of a mile or more below, and found in the morning lying dead. Such cairns are common in Moab, as well as the larger ones which cover the dead slain in some foray on the spot. Women also seemed to be buried in a common grave, by laying them together on the ground and heaping stones over them. Corpses, bones, and fragments of clothing could often be seen beneath the cairn, so that in some cases, at least, it was clear that no excavation had been attempted. Goblan also showed us a sort of depression in the ground, which he said was used in the punishment of thieves who had stolen corn. They were laid there, and sacks of barley placed over them. It was not clear whether they were induced thus to confess where the corn was hidden, or whether the punishment was merely a revenge. On asking, however, how long they were kept, the answer was, "Sometimes we leave them there." The old custom of the ordeal is also still in use among the Arabs. The man who swears innocence of any accusation is made to drink boiling water with flour in it. If this does not appear to hurt him he is judged to have sworn truly, and the natural deduction appears therefore to be that the Bedawin inside must be con structed of iron or his forehead of brass. The Arab cannot afford generally to expend shot in hunting, although he makes his own gunpowder, as we discovered by finding the little mills in the rocks. The sling is much used, and partridges are knocked down with sticks. I once saw an Arab hunting with a shield, composed of a white skin painted with circles and spots, so as to resemble a stone-heap, and stretched on two cross sticks in X shape. It folded up like an umbrella, and was five feet high. From behind this he shot, but missed his aim. The hunting of gazelles with the sluki or greyhound, and the falcon, which flies at the head, and, settling between the horns, flaps its wings in the victim's face, thus impeding its flight till the dog drags it down, is also said to be still practised. The Arabs on a raid generally take a woman with them as cook. The old practice of placing one of the beauties of the tribe in a kind of palanquin made of os. trich-feathers, on a gaily caparisoned camel, and putting her in front of the party, is said still to survive among the Ruala and the 'Anazeh. One of the black slaves of the 'Adwân was considered a great hero in the last generation, because he succeeded single-handed in cutting off a camel with this utfa or ostrich-feather palanquin, and brought the captured beauty to his master's camp. The slaves still are found in numbers among the 'Adwân, but their valor is not what it was of old. The palanquin called mahmal, which conveys to Mecca the so-called holy carpet," or new covering for the Kaaba, is akin to the utfa or "hoop." It appears to be an institution older than Islam, and answers probably to the arks of Egyptians and of Indians. A camel with a mahmal not only accompanies the Hâj from Damascus and Cairo, but also forms part of the procession on such occasions as a circumcision of the richer Moslems. In Egypt it is traditionally connected with the somewhat mythical princess called "Moon of the Age." And now at length we must bid farewell to the Arabs of the Belka— not, let us hope, with the feelings which the 'Adwân aroused in my mind, when it was discovered that after many protestations of the most lofty sentiments of courtesy and gentlemanly feeling, one great chief had placed our pewter teapot in his saddlebag. The Arab is an unimprovable savage, with all the craft, the cruelty, the deceit, and the cowardice which are usual among savages, and with all the affectation of courage, nobility, and honesty which is equally common to the wilder races. When civilization is at a low ebb, and government is weak, the Bedawi chief flourishes and spreads terror; before a strong, settled population he retreats to the howling wilderness, which he does not love, or sinks to the level of a poor cultivator or despised "cousin of gipsies." Yet it must not be forgotten that he has his rights also. The lands in the Jordan valley have distinct owners, and are rudely tilled.. The 'Adwân are acknowledged by the Turk to be proprietors of the country in which they dwell, and the colonist must buy them out if he wishes for their lands. The 'Adwân are on a downhill path, and with the death of Goblan and his generation their future seems to be that they will either become tillers of their own lands, or else sink to the ignoble position of tourist-guides, abused and perhaps ill-paid by the dragoman who as yet hardly ventures over Jordan. The 'Anazeh and Beni Sakhr are wilder and more capable of living in the desert; they must either fall back as the settled population spreads from Salt and the 'Ajlûn villages, and confine themselves to the eastern hills, or they must be ground between the pasha on the west and other fiercer 'Anazeh clans on the east, and, like the 'Adwân, finally disappear. Much as one may regret all that is romantic and picturesque in decaying Bedawin life, it is the fate of wild races so to yield to the more energetic and civilized, and the material for a future conquering and progressive race is not to be discovered among the Semitic nomads of Syria or Arabia. From All The Year Round. AN ITALIAN PRINCE ON HIS TRAVELS. IN the second half of the seventeenth century his serene Highness Ferdinand the Second was grand duke of Tuscany, a generous, liberal-minded man, with a cultivated taste for music and poetry. He was unfortunate, however, in-his wife, Vittoria delle Rovere, Duchess of Urbino, a proud, suspicious bigot, wholly influenced by the priests. He was not less unfor- scattered over the surrounding territory, tunate in his son Cosmo, in the fulness should be living miserably "in mud cabof time his successor, a weak, sensual ins, badly thatched with straw, sleeping on prince, a puppet in the hands of the Jesu- short mats, and subsisting chiefly on fish its. Like his father, Cosmo made an un- and cockles." Bread to them was an alhappy match. He married, very much most unknown luxury. They were treated against her own wishes, Margaret Louisa, as a conquered people, even as serfs, beeldest daughter of Gaston, Duke of Or- ing compelled to surrender to their landleans, a vivacious and accomplished prin- lord three-fourths of the produce of their cess, but equally averse from Spanish tiny farms, besides paying a guinea and a haughtiness and Italian gravity. She half a year for the rent of a cabin and a was, moreover, passionately in love with few square yards of land. They paid six Prince Charles of Lorraine, who after- shillings each towards the maintenance of wards won great renown by defeating, in a priest, who ministered to their spiritual conjunction with John Sobieski, an Otto- wants clandestinely. Throughout the man army under the very walls of Vienna. province of Munster provisions of all Cosmo, it seems, was as deeply enam kinds, and particularly fish and game, ored of his young and beautiful bride as were abundant and cheap, with the excepany one could be who demanded much tion of French wines. Money was so and yielded nothing, and whose cold, un- scarce that the currency mainly consisted sympathetic temperament was calculated of Spanish coin. The viceroy drew anto repel rather than to attract the sprightly, | nually forty thousand pounds from the clever Frenchwoman, who was untroubled government, his appointment being the with a conscience, and madly in love with most valuable "in the gift of the kings of another man. In the hope of curing his | Europe." The revenue derived by the son of his infatuation for his unworthy crown from Ireland did not exceed three wife, and of averting violent scenes of do- hundred thousand pounds a year. The mestic discord, the grand duke Ferdi- antipathy entertained by the English nand sent him off on a tour through Tyrol towards the Irish was so bitter and unand down the Rhine to Amsterdam. The reasonable that intermarriages were proexperiment having utterly failed, Cosmo hibited, as likewise the use of the native was despatched on a longer journey language. It is undeniable, we learn, through Spain, Portugal, England, and that in Ireland "the waters stagnate on Holland. A detailed narrative of the the very highest mountains, so that even illustrious traveller's journeyings, illus-on the tops of the hills is found land trated with numerous bad drawings, was prepared by Count Lorenzo Magalotti, afterwards secretary to the Academy del Cimento, and, a much respected correspondent of Lord Somers and Sir Isaac Newton, by the latter of whom he was designated "il magazino del buon gusto" the magazine of good taste. It is only with Cosmo's wanderings in England during the year 1669, and with the narrator's comments on English sodety at that period, that we need trouble ourselves. It may, however, be remarked that if absence did not make his heart grow fonder, it failed to render him calTous to the misconduct and perversity of his abominable wife. In consequence of bad seamanship on the part of the captain and pilot, his Highness found himself one day in St. George's Channel, and took advantage of the opportunity to land in Kinsale Harbor. He does not appear to have been favorably impressed with the architectural beauties of that town, and was evidently shocked that the Roman Catholics, who, to the number of two hundred families, were soaked in water, producing in greater abundance than any other grass and wild sorrel. In descending the bills on his return to the ship, his Highness passed near some cabins which served to shelter poor people, the native rustics of Ireland, who have no place to rest upon but the bare earth; and, having caused them to be reconnoitred for curiosity, he discovered that within they lived like wild beasts." Although travelling in the strictest incognito, the unfortunate prince was never suffered to pass through the smallest town that boasted of a municipality without being worried with speeches of congratu lation, and all manner of civic pomposity. On landing at Plymouth he was not only encountered by the mayor and aldermen "in their habits of ceremony," but had besides to walk between a double line of soldiers “under arms, with colors flying, trumpets sounding, and drums beating," while the sailors on the numerous ships in the harbor manned the yards, and the people filled the streets and mounted to the very roofs of the houses. Such a rare sight in those days was a foreign prince | out conspicuous. In 1669, although these on his travels! two cities covered a considerably larger area than Paris, their united population fell short of half a million, or some tens of thousands less than the French capital. It was said that six hundred thousand Englishmen slept every night in ships and boats, and this report seemed to the Italians not incredible. Not that the lower orders of Englishmen were at all partial to foreigners. Indeed, they entertained a great prejudice and cherished a profound hatred towards all other nationalities, especially the French Count Magalotti is our authority" treating such as come among them with contempt and insult." The nobility, Although Dorchester is described as "a on the other hand, particularly those who simple town," the district was so much had visited foreign parts, had picked up a infested with robbers that his Highness few lessons in good breeding in their was escorted by a detachment of mounted travels, and displayed "a certain degree militia until he was out of all danger. of politeness and courtesy towards stran- Near Basingstoke he was met by a troop gers." Nearly all of them spoke French of the royal regiment of the Earl of Oxand Italian, the latter language in prefer- ford, the officers of which wore a red sash ence; but, do what they would, they failed with gold tassels. It was "composed of altogether to shake off their characteristic eight companies of seventy men each; stiffness and uncouthness, and were never they receive from the king half a ducat a able to "get the better of a certain nat day. This is paid them every two months, ural melancholy, which had the appear- which being of twenty-eight days each, ance of eternally clouding their minds they have seven payments annually. In with unpleasant thoughts." In truth, each of these companies the colonel has thoughtful men had only too much reason the privilege of keeping two places vato be grave and even melancholy. Not cant, and of appropriating the emolument only had they and their fathers passed to himself, which amounts to more than through fearful trials, but there was the constant dread that the levity of Charles and the bigotry of his brother might again involve the nation in the horrors of a civil war. As for the people at large, they hated the French for being Roman Catholics, but still more for the sufferings they had themselves undergone, as they believed, through the sinister influence of the queen-mother, Henrietta Maria. Within the space of a hundred years Plymouth had grown out of a poor fishing village into one of "the best cities of England, having between twelve and fifteen thousand inhabitants," as against seventy-five thousand at the present day. Dorchester, "a simple town," seems to have been better peopled then than now. The Italian diarist puts down the population as between ten thousand and twelve thousand, whereas now it barely exceeds seven thousand five hundred. Salisbury, also, has declined from over sixteen thousand inhabitants to fourteen thousand five hundred. Cambridge, however, has risen from twelve thousand souls, including two thousand five hundred collegians, to thirtyfive thousand; Ipswich from two thou. sand to fifty thousand seven hundred; Northampton from sixteen thousand to nearly fifty-two thousand; while Rochester has increased from between sixteen thousand and eighteen thousand to only twenty-one thousand five hundred. London and Westminster, of course, stand fourteen pounds sterling every week." Compared with the salaries and allowances which were then drawn by officers of the royal household, this rate of pay must be thought considerable. The lord steward, for instance, at that time the Duke of Ormond, had only one hundred pounds a year “and a table." The lord chamberlain, the Earl of Manchester, was similarly requited for his services; but the Duke of Buckingham, as master of the horse, had six hundred and fifty per annum, "and a table." It is written of him, "He has the management of all the king's stables and studs, and of the posts throughout the kingdom. The persons who serve in the stables, in whatever situation, are dependent on him; in public processions he goes immediately behind the king with a led horse in his hand." The gentlemen of the bedchamber were chosen by his Majesty from among his peers, and deemed themselves fortunate in drawing salaries of one thousand pounds per annum each. "They attend in the chamber in rotation, a week at a time, sleeping all night upon a mattress." Although the viceroy of Ireland was the highest paid officer of State, the Duke of York, as postmaster general, held a more enviable office, for he did nothing whatever in return for his twenty thousand pounds a year, but left "the management of the business to the king's secretaries." The population of the entire kingdom |