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

cit. XXV.] Faculty of Sight. 20 r
ment of living, a Bedouin in all probability gets as
much out of his few years as we do out of our
many.
Much has been talked of the wonderful faculties
of sight and hearing possessed by the Bedouins, but
I have not remarked that they excel in either. On
the contrary, short-sight is common among them
and the ordinary Bedouin sees and hears no better
We
than the ordinary Italian, Greek, or Spaniard.
were ourselves constantly appealed to by them when
trying to distinguish objects at a distance. In the
same way their faculty of finding their way across
the deserts has been much exaggerated.
Bedouins,
of course, know their own district well, and that
district is often a large one ; but, once take them
out of it, and they are very nearly helpless. An
Anazeh cannot, as a South American gauclio does,
make out his course by sun and wind, and keep it
day after day till he arrives at the point intended.
He travels, on the contrary, from landmark to landmark
; and, where these fail, he depends entirely
on the information
he may gather from shepherds
or at tents. If the country be uninhabited, he is
frightened. Living always in the desert, the Bedouins
yet speak of the Choi or Berriye in terms of
awe. They could never understand how it was that
we ventured without guides into unknown lands.
Of keeping a straight course for a wliole day they
seem incapable, for they are unable to
calculate the
gradual motion of the sun round them. The only