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

CH. XXIV.] The Indtistriotts Tribes. 185
desert they are beginning to plougli and sow corn.
They cling, however, all of them, to their Hocks and
herds, and as long as this is the case it is better to
leave them in their tents than to try and make
them live in houses. Nothing is more wretched
than a pastoral life in fixed dwellings.
The most prosperous of the tribes are those which,
while remaining purely nomadic, have either
never
been or have ceased to be troublesome to their
neighbours.
I have generally remarked that, whereever
cattle and buffaloes are found, there the tribes
are peaceable and flourishing. The Jiburi on the
Tigris, and the Subbkha on the Euphrates, are good
types of an honest, industrious, but purely pastoral
race, living w^ith their cattle all the year round in
the same district, and making as good subjects as a
Sultan need have.
The Haddadin too are an excellent
example of what pure nomades may be.
only sheep, with the
These keep
exception of a few camels for
transport duty, and have a just reputation in the
desert for honesty and good manners.
The citizens
of Aleppo and Mosul entrust their sheep every
winter to them and seem contented with the arrangement.
The Haddadin are the most prosperous
tribe we visited. The Weldi, further west, have a
similar reputation for honesty, but, owing to some bad
years lately and the extreme exactions of the Aleppo
Government, they have been much impoverished.
With proper encouragement and light taxation,
the northern desert might maintain a large and