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

en. XXVI.] Bedouin Morals. --D
so little coiiJcmnccl there, are considered by the
Bedouins pre-eminently shameful. I do not think,
incredible as it may sound to English ears, that the
Bedouin exists who, if trusted with money by a
friend, would misemploy it. The Weldi and Haddadin
are
entrusted every winter by the citizens of
Aleppo and Mosul with thousands of sheep, for
which they account satisfactorily in the spring to
their owners. The Bedouin system of joint ownership
in a mare would be impossible in a country
where honesty between man and man was not
general rule. In all the tribes, it constantly happens
that widows and orphans succeed to considerable
properties in camels and sheep, but nobody supposes
them to be in any particular dangerofsufiering wrong
at the hands of their relations.
The Agheyl are proverbial
for their unimpeachable honesty ; and there
is no man among them who might not be trusted
with large suras of money. That there are rogues
in the desert is probable, but dishonesty is not, as
in modern Europe, the rule. It is the very rare
exception. The thieves for the most part hang
together, and form small tribes apart from the rest
these are composed of men Avho have been turned
out by their fellows, and of whom nothing good
can be expected. In the large tribes persons of
known dishonesty are not tolerated.
In the same way injustice on the part of those in
power is almost impossible.
Public opinion at once
asserts itself ; and the sheykh, who should attempt
a