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

282 Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates.
golden eggs is every day being killed in Turkey, or
at any rate mercilessly robbed, and to its last nest
egg. In this way, the peaceful shepherd tribes,
though protected from the Anazeh and Shammar,
are plundered by the Government, and hardly appreciate
the change of masters. The AVeldi, a rich
tribe t\Yenty years ago when they were tributary to
the Anazeh, are now reduced to poverty by the
exactions of the Pashalik of Aleppo ; and the
Jibtiri, on the Tigris, industrious herdsmen, seem
strangely altered in circumstances since Layard
lived among them in 1845. The only really prosperous
nomades, at present under Turkish rule, are
the Haddadin ; and they, from their connection with
the townsmen, may possibly have been respected in
the general plunder. It is hardly to be wondered
at then that, in view of that which has befallen
their poorer neighbours, the great camel-owning
tribes, who being always on the move, are out of
Government reach, should have hitherto
refused all
proposals made them of abandoning their wild life.
Their power of oftence, indeed, has been much
restricted of late years by the garrisoning of the
lines of river, and the introduction of " arms of
precision " among the Turkish soldiery ; and their
old source of wealth, the tribute paid them by the
desert towns, has been cut ofi'. But, beyond this,
nothino- has Ijeen effected. The Anazeh and
Shammar are still as thoroughly independent of the
Sultan as the day they first appeared within his