These Arabs of the desert are proud with a pride we do not understand. They are proud of their long lineage, of the purity of their blood, of their unbroken traditions. They are an impulsive, restless people, who, with their emotional temperament, give impetuosity to everything which they touch. They are the real adventurers of the world, and their nervous, high-strung, daring characteristics have become so absorbed into their very being as to have become permanent marks of their race. At the seat of all troubles, in countries where the Bedouins are strong, one finds them ready to do and dare anything that appeals to their imagination. At the rising of a Mahdi, it is the Arab of the desert who is his strongest support, who will die for him, who will sweep down like a holocaust upon the people who do not share with him his beliefs in the cause, for which he throws his life away with a bravado that makes men of a more sluggish blood gasp in astonishment. This cause must appeal to his emotions—those same riotous emotions which never produce, but always ruin. We are told that the Bedouin is the author of complete desolation, and that destruction follows in his pathway; that his effects are always sinister, and that this race brings ruin to any land where they have been permitted to have full sway. We know he is not a creature of habit, and that routine, a settled existence, a fixed round of duties, are things which he does not understand nor practise. He does not reason and is not practical, yet it is the Arab that has succeeded in sending the faith of El Islam around the world, and every movement of revival comes directly from the desert.
Few people travelling in Egypt or Algeria see the real dweller beneath the tents. There are Bedouins in the cities, and one soon learns to tell them, with their keen eyes, their eager faces, and majestic stride, from the more placid, self-satisfied Egyptian. But in the city he is not his true self, as life in the cities has a permanent and degrading effect on the character and physique of the race; the fire of the desert dies within him. It is in the shifting sands beneath the tents that he is at his best. There he carries out his tribal customs, and there he practises that wonderful virtue of hospitality that Mohammed, himself an Arab, laid upon his people. He said, “Whoever believes in God and the Resurrection must respect his guest; and the time of his being kind to him is one day and night; and the period of entertaining him is three days; and after that if he does it longer, it benefits him more, but it is not right for a guest to stay in the house of a host so long as to incommode him.” It is said that even a deadly enemy may come to the tent and demand water and salt, and it will be given him, and he will be allowed to rest for the night. In the morning he will be sent on his way, and his life is safe until he has passed the boundary of the tribe’s dominions, then his enemy is entitled to follow him and kill him if he can.