The Hijazi Badawin have no game of chance, and dare not, I am told, ferment the juice of the Daum palm, as proximity to Aden has taught the wild men of Al-Yaman.[FN#44] Their music is in a rude state. The principal instrument is the Tabl, or kettle-drum, which is of two kinds: one, the smaller, used at festivals; the other, a large copper tom-tom, for martial purposes, covered with leather, and played upon, pulpit-like, with fist, and not with stick. Besides which, they have the one-stringed Rubabah, or guitar, that monotonous but charming instrument of the Desert. In another place I have described their dancing, which is an ignoble spectacle.
The Badawin of Al-Hijaz have all the knowledge necessary for procuring and protecting the riches of savage life. They are perfect in the breeding, the training, and the selling of cattle. They know sufficient of astronomy to guide themselves by night, and are acquainted
[p.108] with the names of the principal stars. Their local memory is wonderful. And such is their instinct in the art of asar, or tracking, that it is popularly said of the Zubayd clan, which lives between Meccah and Al-Madinah, a man will lose a she-camel and know her four-year-old colt by its foot. Always engaged in rough exercises and perilous journeys, they have learned a kind of farriery and a simple system of surgery. In cases of fracture they bind on splints with cloth bands, and the patient drinks camels milk and clarified butter till he is cured. Cuts are carefully washed, sprinkled with meal gunpowder, and sewn up. They dress gunshot wounds with raw camels flesh, and rely entirely upon nature and diet. When bitten by snakes or stung by scorpions, they scarify the wound with a razor, recite a charm, and apply to it a dressing of garlic.[FN#45] The wealthy have Fiss or ring-stones, brought from India, and used with a formula of prayer to extract venom. Some few possess the Tariyak (Theriack) of Al-Irakthe great counter-poison, internal as well as external, of the East. The poorer classes all wear the Zaal or Hibas of Al-Yaman; two yarns of black sheeps wool tied round the leg, under the knee and above the ankle. When bitten, the sufferer tightens these cords above the injured part, which he immediately scarifies; thus they act as tourniquets. These ligatures also cure crampsand there is no other remedy. The Badawi knowledge of medicine is unusually limited in this part of Arabia, where even simples are not required by a people who rise with dawn, eat little, always breathe Desert air, and at night make the camels their curfew. The great tonic is clarified butter, and the Kay, or actual cautery, is used even for rheumatism. This counter-irritant, together with a curious and artful phlebotomy,