Travels in Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria, and across the desert into Egypt ...

164
TRAVELS IN ASIATIC TURKEY,
of Syria, the Fellahs manifested a spirit
of resistance which the
invaders had little reason to expect. In the relation which the
French artist, Denon, who accompanied the above detachments,
has published, the vigorous resistance made by these people is
recorded, but not with all the circumstances by which the trans-
actions were accompanied. It is certain, that a detachment of
eighty French was put to death in the night-time by the inhabitants
of Foua, led by a fanatic shieck; and that, on several other
occasions, they harassed and annoyed the republican troops, by
whom they were at length, with great difficulty, brought under
subjection.
The wandering Arabs, or Bedouins, who form the other class,
are divided into tribes, more or less numerous, to each of which
distinct limits are assigned. These tribes do not always live in
amity together; and whenever, in consequence of an invasion of
limits, or some other cause of dispute among themselves, war is
declared, alliances are formed, in which the policy of the numbers
to be ranged on each side is consulted. The weaker tribes, in these
cases, do not of course neglect to associate themselves with the
more powerful. The worst part of their warfare consists, how-
ever, in the attacks (hey make on travellers, whether in small ami
isolated parties, or in the large bodies formed fur protection and de-
fence into caravans. The Bedouins then all
betray
the ferocious
cruelty o{ their character, which they
also manifest when they make
incursions into the
villages of the Arab cultivators. In executing
their predatory projects, they have even dared to penetrate to the
walls of Cairo. The property with which travel
they consists of
horses, camels, and sheep-, and to seek pasturage for these animals,
they are constantly shifting their ground in the deserts where thev
have taken up their residence. A class of them, however, more:
settled than the others, but still Bedouins, inhabit tents on the bor-
ders of the deserts, and there cultivate such spots as are favourable
to vegetation.
The swiftness of the mares on which they are mounted was a
great obstacle to the progress of the French, on their penetrating
into Upper Egypt. Whenever they felt themselves in sufficient
force to encounter their enemy, the Bedouins attacked with an
entire confidence that, in case of a defeat, they
should be able to
eiTect their escape. It was on this account that the French had re-
course to the formation of a corps mounted on dromedaries, which
I have already had occasion to notice. By
the aid of these ani-