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

Turkish Successes in Ai'abia. 28
like ones ; encouragement to all wlio will cultivate
the soil : security for the high roads and military
occupation of the villages ; alliances entered into
with the Bedouin chiefs, and inducements offered
them to act as the police of the desert ;—nothing,
in idea, could be better or more European. It is
only in practice that the Turks fail,
and that, I fear,
from incurable causes. Yet have they not wholly
failed. From a military point of view, the Pashas
can boast with some truth that, compared with
twenty years ago, no country has made more rapid
steps towards civilisation.
The power of the Bedouin
tribes has within that period been seriously checked,
if not broken ; and it is quite conceivable that in
another twenty years, at
the same rate of progress,
the Anazeh will have disappeared from the upper
Syrian desert, and the Shammar have been reclaimed
to settled life in Mesopotamia. On the
day when the
alluvial valley of the Euphrates shall
be completely cultivated, and their access to the
river cut off in summer, the true Bedouins must
retire to the Nejd, whence they came, or abandon
their independent life. Turkish optimists are excusable
if they count on this. But for my part, I
do not believe in the regeneration of Turkey, or
even in the maintenance of its military power for
any length of time.
Tlie chief vice of the Turkish system, as now
seen in the desert, is one which affects the whole
empire,—ruthless taxation. The goose with the