Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates Vol 2 - The Search For Mecca

io8 Bedouin Tribes of the Etiphrates. [ch. xx.
young man mounted on a ratlier sliowy colt, which
he told us was a Jilfan Stam el bdulad, and he
introduced himself as a son of Mijuel the Mesrab,
who is well known at Damascus as the husband of
an English lady. He was extremely polite, invited
us to his tent and begged us if we went to Damascus,
to go to his father's house. His tribe, the Mesrab, is
a very small one, and moves about with the Gomussa,
having hardly a separate existence, if it is not
indeed part of the Gomussa or Eesallin. The sheykh,
Mijuel's elder brother, a funny little old man of
anything but distinguished appearance, we met later
in Beteyen's tent. The young man himself goes
every winter with the tribe to the Hamdd, but
spends the summer at Damascus or Homs, in either
As regards
of which towns his father has a house.
his ste23mother we have constantly heard her
spoken of in the desert, and always in terms of
respect. She is a charitable person, and a providence
to her husband's people, supplying them with
money, arms and everything they require. Mijuel
himself is talked of as a supremely fortunate man, the
possessor of boundless wealth, though some think
his marriage a mesalUancc, as the lady is not of
Arab blood, consequently not asil (noble).
Presently after this, we came upon Beteyen, whose
tent was being pitched in a wady, the entrance to
some broken hilly ground lying north of our line of
march. Here we alighted. There is water somewhere
close by, in another of the series of pools I