"In these pages, in fine, once upon a time, there was a somewhat piquant chapter entitled, The Council of Ministers.' But somebody said to the author, 'Be careful, this is personality-these personages will be recognized; do not publish the chapter. And the obedient author cancelled the chapter accordingly. There was another chapter, entitled, A Dream of Love.' It was a rather tender love-scene, as a picture of passion ought to be in a romance. But somebody said to the author, 'It is not proper, on your part, to bring out a book of which passion occupies so great a portion. This chapter is unnecessary; strike it out.' So the frightened author suppressed this chapter also. Once upon a time, too, in these pages were two morsels of verse. The one was a satire, the other an elegy. But somebody decreed that the satire was too pungent, and the elegy too melancholy. So the author gave them up; but this conviction she keeps, that a woman who sees the world ought to refrain from writing, since she may bring to the light nothing but what is perfectly insignificant." Poor Delphine Gay! We know not whether "to love, honor, and obey" formed one of the promises of her marriage ceremony; the fulfilling it, however, seems to have been somewhat hard for her. Yet when her ungrateful husband was in prison, on account of his political views, she underwent all sorts of dangers for him. This sentimental poetess and lively novelist was certainly not a bad specimen of a woman. TA'ABBET-SHURRAN AND HIS COMPANIONS. BY W. GIFFORD PALGRAVE. A FEW months' experience of Arabia Proper suffices to teach the traveller of our day that the terms "Arab" and "Bedouin," though not unfrequently used as if convertible, are by no means such in reality. It may further teach him, if he knew it not before, that " Bedouin" and "robber" are also not necessarily synonymous; that the latter designation is no less ill-sounding to the ordinary Arab ear than it would be to the European; and that the class which it represents is amenable to whatever penalties Arab law and society can inflict, much as it would be in more civilized lands of juries and police-force. Nor is this, so far as Arabia itself is concerned, a recently-introduced order of things, due to comparatively modern influences, social or political; on the contrary, a retrospective view of the national annals, even when carried back to the first daydawn of præ-Islamitic history, presents no other aspect; and full five centuries before the appearance of the Meccan lawgiver, we find the thief, the robber, and the brigand already paled off from, and at war with, established order and right; already marked with the outlaw's brand, and subject to all its sternest consequences. And yet, in spite of these facts, it cannot be denied, that, in these same earliest times, the great peninsula bore, as it still, and to a certain extent not undeservedly, bears, an evil name for the number and the audacity of its robbers. The cause is inheent, and not far to seek. A population much too scanty in proportion to the geographical extent of the land it occupies, as also, though from different reasons, one notably overcrowded, must always render the efficacious protection of individual life and property a difficult task, even for the strongest and most energetic administration; and the difficulty will, under a weak or negligent rule, amount to absolute impossibility. Thus, for example's sake, the open spaces of the lonely Campagna, the wild glens of Albanian or Koordistan, the parched sierras of Central Spain, and the defiles of Southern Greece, have long been, and, bating external influences, may long remain, under the feebleness of decrepit or malformed governments, Papal or Turkish, Spanish or Hellene, the dread of the wayfaring merchant and the defenceless tourist. In lands like these the town gates are often the ultimate limits of security. Indeed, it is not, as we all know, many centuries since, that scantiness of inhabitants, combined with a defective because an incipient organization, rendered large tracts of France, of Germany, and of England itself, dangerous travelling for the unarmed and unescorted. But nowhere perhaps, in the Old World at least, does there exist an equal extent of land in which all the sinister conditions that favor brigandage are so perplexingly combined and aggravated as in Arabia Proper. There, for distances measured not by miles but by degrees, vast expanses of stony, irreclaimable desert, of pathless sands and labyrinthine rocks, place utterly disproportionate intervals of enforced solitude between the watered valleys and green slopes, where alone any thing like settled life and social union can make good its footing. A week of suns may not seldom rise, and set on the slow-moving caravan without bringing into view a single roof; indeed, the known life-sparing clemency of the Arab robber is chiefly due, not to any favorable speciality of character, but to this very circumstance of solitude; in other words, to the brigand's certainty that long before his plundered victims can reach help, or even give tidings, he himself and his booty will be far beyond pursuit. "Desert means license," says the Arab proverb; the wild lands breed wild men; and thus it is that centuries of comparative law and order, the organizing vigor of Mahomet and his first successors, the sceptre of the Caliphs, and the military discipline of the Turks, have each, in their turn, failed to render the sandwaves of the "Nefood" and the gullies of "Toweyk" wholly safe ventures for the traveller; while even the rigor, amounting almost to tyranny, of the more recent Wahhabee rulers, who avowedly tolerate no spoilers besides themselves, cannot render permanantly secure the intercourse and traffic of one Arab province-oasis, I might better say- with another. But during the latter years of the præ-Islamitic period, when the entire centre of the peninsula, and no small portion of its circumference, - that is, whatever was not immediately subject to the rule of the Yemenite kings, and of their or the Persian viceroys,- resembled best of all a seething caldron, where the overboiling energies of countless clans, and divisions of clans, dashed and clashed in neverresting eddies; when no fixed organization or political institution, beyond that of the tribe at most, had even a chance of permanence in the giddy whirl, open robbers were, as might have naturally been expected, both numerous and daring; nor can we wonder if, when every man did more or less what was right in his own eyes, the list of the colorblind to the moral tints of "mine" and "thine" should have been a long one, and have included many names of great, though not good renown. Indeed, it might almost have been anticipated that the entire nation would have been numbered in the ill-famed category, till the univer sality of fact absorbed the distinction of name; and none would have been called robbers, because all were so. Fortunately, the clan principle interfered; and, by tra cing certain though inadequate limits of social right and wrong, rendered transgression alike possible and excep tional. He who, led astray by private and personal greed, plundered, not on his own clan's account, but on his own; who, without discrimination of peace-time or war, of alliance or hostility, attacked the friends no less than the foes of his tribesmen, -was, from the earliest times, accounted criminal; while he who, in concert with his kin, assailed and spoiled a common and acknowledged enemy, was held to have performed an honorable duty. After this fashion the Arabs learned to draw the line in no age or country a very broad one- - between war and brigandage; and, by vehement reprobation of the latter, stood self-excused for their excessive proneness to the former. From such a state of things, where geographical configuration and political confusion conspired to encourage what nascent organization and primal morality agreed to condemn, arose the præ-Islamitic brigand class. This, although recruited in the main, after the fashion of other lands, by idleness, want, and the half-idiocy that has much, if physiology tell true, to do with habitual vice, yet comprised also men, who, under more propitious circumstances, might have led a different and an honorable career. These were they who-having, in consequence of some special deed of blood, sudden mishap, or occasionally sheer innate fierceness of temperament, become nearly or quite detached from their own particular clan and its alliances — led, henceforth at large, a life of "sturt and strife," of indis criminate plunder and rapine; disavowed by all, hostile to all, yet holding their own; and that, strange though it may seem, not by physical force merely, but also by intellectual pre-eminence. They stand before us in the national records, apart from the great chiefs and leaders of their age, apart from the recognized heroes, the 'Antarahs and Barakats of epic war, wild, half-naked, savage, inured to hardships, danger, and blood; yet looked upon by their countrymen with a respect amounting almost to awe; and crowned with a halo of fame visible even through the mist of centuries, and under the altered lights of Islam: men to be admired, though not imitated; to be honored while condemned: a moral paradox, explained partly by the character of the times they lived in, partly by their own personal qualities. When a nation is either wholly barbarous or wholly civilized, the records of its "criminal classes" are of little interest, and of less utility. In the former case, they form, indeed, the bulk of the local chronicle; but the tale they tell of utter and bestial savagery, the mere repetition of brute force, cunning, and cruelty, is alike purportless, tedious, and disgusting. On the other hand, among nations well advanced in civilization, the ban laid on exceptional rebels against the reign of law is so withering, and the severance between them and the better life of the land so entire, that nothing remains to a Jack Sheppard or a Bill Sykes but stupid, hateful, unmeaning vice, unfit either to point the moral of the novelist or to adorn the tale of the historian. But between the two extremes of barbarism and of culture, the records of most nations exhibit a middle or transition period, when the bonds of society, though formed, are still elastic; while public morality is already sufficiently advanced to disallow much that public order is as yet too feeble to repress. In such a period the highway robber is apt to be regarded with a sort of half-toleration, as a relic of the "good old times; " and even becomes, in the estimation of many, a sort of conservative protest against the supposed degeneracies and real artificialities of progress; a semi-hero, to be, metaphorically at least, if not in fact, hung in a silken halter, and cut down to the tune of a panegyric. On these frontier lines between order and anarchy, in this twilight between license and law, flourish Robin Hoods, Helmbrechts, Kalewi-Poegs, and their like; equivocal celebrities, brigands by land and corsairs at sea; feared, respected, and hated by their injured contemporaries; more honored by later and securer generations, and ultimately placed on pedestals of fame side by side with their betters in the national Valhalla. And what the era of King John was to England, the "Interregnum" to Germany, the days of Sueno and his peers to Scandinavia, that were to Arabia the two centuries that preceded the appearance of Mahomet; but chiefly the former. Heroes had ceased to be robbers, but robbers had not wholly ceased to be heroes. A more special reason for the peculiar and prominent rank held in præ-Islamitic Arab story by these wild rovers of the desert is to be sought in the intense vigor and activity of the prevailing national spirit, of which these very men were an ill-regulated and exaggerated, yet by no means an unfaithful representation. To the physical ad vantages of strength, fleetness, quickness of eye, and dexterity of hand, all objects of deliberate and systematic culture in Pagan Arabia, no less than in Pagan Greece, they added many of the moral qualities then held in the highest esteem by their countrymen, patient endurance, forethought, courage, daring, and even generosity; while some of them, in addition, attained lasting fame for excellence in poetry, then, as now, the proudest boast of the Arab. Thus it was that although rapine, bloodshed, and not rarely treachery, might dim, they could not wholly eclipse the splendor of their better qualities and worthier deeds. Such was the classical præ-Islamitic brigand, as portrayed to us in the pages of the Hamasah, of Aboo-lFaraj, Meydanee, and others; not indeed the full image, but the skeleton and ground-plan of his race: a type in which the Arab character, not of those ages only, but of all succeeding generations, is correctly though roughly given; untamable, self-reliant, defiant, full of hard good sense and deep passion, a vivid though a narrow imagination, and a perfect command of the most expressive of all spoken languages; while at the same time these very men, by their isolation, their inaptitude for organized combination, their contempt for all excellence or development save that of the individual, their aversion to any restraint however wholesome, and above all their restless inconstancy of temper, give the measure of Arab national weakness, and too clearly illustrate that incoherent individualism which ruined the empires of Damascus, Bagdad, and Cordova, and blighted even in its flower the fairest promise of the Arab mind. Their muster-roll is a long one; but at its head stand eminent three names of renown, illustrated by records of exceptional completeness. These are Ta'abbet-Shurran, Shanfara', and Soleyk, men each of whom deserves special mention, because each represents in himself a peculiar subdivision of the great brigand class. "Ta'abbet-Shurran," or, "He has taken an evil thing under his arm," is the composite appellation by which Arab story recognizes its robber-hero of predilection. His real name was Thabit, the son Jabir; the clan of Fahm, to which he belonged, formed part of the great Keys-'Eglan family, the progeny of Modar; and accordingly of " Most'areb (that is "adscititious Arab," or, in mythical phrase), of Ismaelitic, not of "'Aarab," "pure Arab," or of Southern and Kahtanee origin. The Fahm Arabs, nomad once, but tamed down by the process of the suns into semiagriculturists, still, as in the century the fifth of our era, when Ta'abbet-Shurran lent his sinister lustre to their name, frequent the wild and secluded, but well-watered gorges that lie immediately behind the mountains of Ta'if and Aseer, south-east of Mecca, somewhat apart from the main lines of Arab land communication; and while they have secured a practical independence by nominal acquiescence in the political or religious phases of their more powerful neighbors, scarcely bear themselves a trace of the many influences that have again and again remodelled the not distant capital of the peninsula. A few earth villages, with low, yellowish walls, a somewhat larger number of black tent-groups; here and there a scraggy enclosure of palms, melons, and vetches, or a thinly-verdant patch of pasture; a fair allowance of goats and camels, of rock and sand between; lean, dusky men in long shirts and tattered cloaks, striped or black; near the houses some muffled women in dark-blue cloth and glass arm-rings; some very brown and naked children, seemingly belonging to no one in particular, such is the land and tribe of Fahm, rich in blood and genealogies, miserably poor in all besides, and a fit nursing-stock for robbers, even now. How the Fahmite Thabit, son of Jabir, came by the denominative sentence which has almost superseded his original name in his country's literature, is variously related. According to one account, he had gone out, while yet a mere boy, on some lonely errand, probably to look after some stray camel, and had advanced far into the desert, when suddenly he saw what seemed a large goat perched upon a rock before him. At his approach the thing darted away; the lad followed, and, being fleet and sure of foot, soon overtook and captured it. But to bring it home was no easy matter; for the brute, not content with kicking and struggling, took to becoming heavier and heavier every minute, till Thabit, whose strength had only just sufficed to carry it up to the limits of the encampment, was forced to let it drop. But hardly had it touched the ground than, in full view of all the horrified bystanders, it assumed its proper form, that of a ghoul, or demon, and vanished. "Ta'abbet-Shurran " (" He has brought a mischief under his arm"), said the clansmen one to another; and this henceforth was Thabit's name. In this story is adumbrated what the Greeks, like the Arabs, would have called the "dæmon" character of the man himself. Another and a more prosaic version substitutes for the goat-ghoul, Thabit's own sword, which he was in the habit of thus carrying, no less persistently than Louis Philippe his umbrella, and which certainly wrought mischief enough, as we shall soon see. On details like these, historical criticism would be a mere waste of learning and ingenuity: the general truthfulness of a portrait is more to our present purpose than the minute precision of a photograph. All annalists agree in representing Ta'abbet-Shurran as an essentially "wild man," clever, talented even, but irreclaimable; a born rebel to all social law and custom; one of the feræ naturâ whom the literature of modern times is wont to paint in somewhat rounded contours and prismatic colors, but whose real lineaments stand out harsh and vigorous in one of the son of Jabir's authentic poems, where his own ultimate hero-ideal is thus portrayed: "Nor exults he, nor complains he; silent bears whate'er befalls him, Much desiring, much attempting; far the wanderings of his "As the dawn, so the day," says an Arab proverb; and the circumstances under which Ta'abbet-Shurran quitted his family and tribe, while yet a mere boy, give a tolerable insight into what his character even then was, and what an after career might be augured for him. The " frightful, desperate, wild, and furious" of Shakspeare's young Richard is no less applicable to the former stage of Ta'abbet's life, than "daring, bold, and venturous to the latter. To Western ears, the tale may sound a strange one; but to those who have passed a day among the tents of Wadee-!Kora, or a night on the gravel-strewn plains of 'Aared, it has little startling, and nothing incredible. The mother of Ta'abbet-Shurran, left a widow by the death of her first husband Jabir, while our hero and his four brave but less celebrated brothers were yet mere children, had married again; and this time her choice had fallen on a man named 'Amir, of the tribe of Hodeyl, a clan famous alike for warriors and poets, the latter of whom have bequeathed to posterity an entire volume, or Divan, of verses, oftener studied than understood, even by Arab commentators and critics. 'Amir himself was a poet; and some by no means contemptible performances of his in this line have come down to us. Second, or even third and fourth marriages, have never involved any discredit in 66 Arab opinion, whether Pagan or Mahometan; nor would the merry wife of Bath have needed much argument to make good her case, had her pilgrimage been to 'Okad or Mecca, instead of Canterbury. The only inconveniences a buxom and well-to-do Arab widow needed, or, for the matter of that, still needs carefully to avoid, were family jealousies and clannish dissensions: the relict of Jabir ran her matrimonial ship in its second voyage on both these rocks. Hodeyl, though a neighboring, was not a kindred clan to Fahm; and Ta'abbet-Shurran, or, to give him his domestic name, Thabit, who was the eldest and fiercest among his brothers, soon learned to look on his stepfather as an intruder, and on his position in the household as an abiding insult. When 'Amir (so continues the narrative) saw the lad beside him growing up with evident signs in his face of a hatred which he took no pains to conceal, he said one day to his wife, By heaven, this youngster's manner causes me real uneasiness: our marriage is the cause; had we not better separate at once before worse happens? Divorce is a less evil than bloodshed." But the woman, who seems to have liked the company of her new husband better than the children of her old one, answered, "First try if you cannot clear the fellow out of the way by some stratagem." 'Amir accordingly waited his opportunity, till, when a convenient time came, he said to the lad, "Åre you disposed to accompany me on a raid?" "With all my heart," was the ready answer. "Come along, then," said 'Amir. So they set out both of them together; but 'Amir purposely omitted to take any provisions with them for the road. They journeyed on all that night and the next day, without once halting, till the second evening closed in, by which time 'Amir made certain that the lad must be well-nigh famished for want of food. Thus thinking, he led the way in a direction where enemies were likely to be, till, at last, there appeared the gleam of a fire burning at some distance in front. 'Amir then stopped, and said to his stepson, "Halloa, boy! we are short of food, and must get something to eat; go over to where you see that fire, and ask the folk who are cooking by it to give us a share of their meal." Thabit answered, "What, man! is this a time for eating?" "Time or not, I am hungry," 'Amir rejoined; so off with you, and bring me some supper." Thabit made no further answer, but went. As he neared the fire, he saw two of the most notorious ruffians in the whole land sitting by it: they were, in fact, the very men into whose hands his stepfather had designed that he should fall. When the reflection of the fire fell on the lad, the ruffians saw him and sprang up to seize him he turned and ran; they followed; but he was lighter of foot than they, and kept ahead, till, looking over his shoulder, he observed that one of his pursuers had outstripped the other; then, suddenly turning on the nearer of the two, he closed with him, and laid him dead at a blow. This done, without a moment's pause he rushed on the other, who stood bewildered, and disposed of him in the same manner. He then walked leisurely to the fire which they had lighted, and there found some unleavened bread baking under the cinders: this he took, and brought it, without tasting it, to his stepfather, saying, "Eat may it choke you! But he himself refused to touch a morsel. 'Amir said, "Tell me all about it, and how you came by it." The lad answered, "What is that to you? eat, and ask no questions." So 'Amir ate, but more from compulsion than appetite, while his fear of the young devil increased every instant, till, unable to contain his curiosity, he again begged the boy, adjuring him by all the rights of companionship, to tell him the whole adventure. Thabit did so; and the result was that 'Amir now feared him worse then ever. After some hours' rest, they again went on, and soon reached the pas ture-grounds of the hostile tribe, whence they succeeded in driving off some camels, and then turned homewards with their booty, taking, however, a distant and circuitous way to avoid pursuit. For three successive nights on the road, 'Amir said to his stepson, "Make choice which half of the night you would best like to keep watch over the camels: as for me, I will take charge of them for the other half, while you sleep." But Thabit as regularly answered, 66 "Make your choice yourself: it is all one to me." Free thus to arrange matters according to his own liking, 'Amir used to sleep during the first half of the night, while his stepson sat up and kept guard; at midnight, 'Amir rose and relieved the lad, who then went and lay down for a few hours; but when Thabit seemed once to be fast asleep, 'Amir took the opportunity to lie down and go to sleep also; so that in fact, he never kept watch at all. Thus passed three nights. On the fourth and last-for they were now nearing their own land-'Amir thought that the lad must certainly be overcome with fatigue and drowsiness. So he lay down as usual, and took his fill of sleep, while Thabit remained keeping good watch till midnight came, when it was 'Amir's turn to rise and guard. This he did, till, after a while, he saw the lad to all appearance sound asleep, when he said within himself, "Surely, the fellow must now be tired out, and hard of waking; now or never is the time to get rid of him altogether." Not feeling, however, quite sure whether his stepson's slumbers were in reality as deep as they seemed, he thought it best to try an experiment first; so, taking up a pebble from the ground beside him, he flung it to some distance, when lo! hardly had the stone touched the sand, than the lad started up bolt upright, with, "What noise was that?" 'Amir, feigning surprise, answered, "On my life, I do not know; but it seemed to me to come from the direction where the camels are. I heard it, but could not make it out clearly." Hereon Thabit went and prowled about, searching on all sides in the darkness, till, having discovered nothing, he returned and lay down. A second time the stepfather waited, long enough as he thought; then took a little pebble smaller than the first, and jerked it away. It fell a long way off; but no sooner had it struck the plain, than the boy was on his feet again, exclaiming, "What was that? "" Really, I cannot say," was the answer: "this is the second time I have heard it; perhaps one of the camels has got loose." Instantly Thabit began prowling hither and thither in the dark night, but of course could find nothing on which to fix his suspicions; so he returned to his place and laid him down once more. A third time 'Amir waited till a full hour had passed, and then took up the very smallest pebble he could find, and flung it away with all his force as far as possible. But the result was all one: up leaped the lad, fresh as at first, only that this time he asked no questions, but, setting off without a word, searched thoroughly on all sides around; then returned, and coming close up to his stepfather, said, "Fellow, I do not like these doings of yours; so I give you now fair warning, the next time I hear any thing more of this kind, by God you are a dead man." With this he went a little apart, and settled himself again to sleep; while 'Amir, as he himself afterwards told the story, passed the remaining hours of darkness wide awake, and in mortal fear, lest by some accident any one of the camels should really stir, and the lad jump up and kill him. Next day they reached the tents of Fahm; but Thabit, who guessed rightly enough that a plot had been laid against him, and that his mother had been privy to it, would not remain any longer in the family, but took to the desert. 'Amir also shortly after found his position in the tribe, who had got an inkling of the matter, an unpleasant one; so he divided his goods with his wife, and, divorcing himself from her, returned to the pastures of Hodeyl. However, Thabit, or Ta'abbet-Shurran, as, in compliance with his Arab chroniclers, I shall henceforth call him, became subsequently reconciled with his mother; and often when weary, or hard-pressed by pursuers, availed himself of the temporary repose and shelter of her tent. With his own tribe, too, the men of Fahm, he always remained on friendly terms, though he took no part henceforth in their public affairs; nor was he regarded by them as entitled to their protection, much less assistance. But for all others whatever, he was simply an outlaw and a robber; while the clan of Hodeyl, which he had early learned to hate on his stepfather's account, was, his whole life through, the special object of his depredations. There is a region which, while it belongs to none of the to three great provinces of Western and Central Arabia, Hejaz, that is, Nejd, or Yemen,-yet forms a kind of junction-tract between them, and is in consequence traversed by most of the great Arab routes that lead from all directions to the old centre of commercial and social activity, the territory of Mecca. From the earliest times down to our own, this borderland has been a favorite resort of highwaymen; partly on account of the frequent opportu nities of plunder afforded by passing travellers and caravans, partly from its own topographical peculiarities, which seem to mark it out as a fitting repair for brigands and outlaws. It is an intricate labyrinth of valleys, narrow and winding where they first descend from the rugged ranges of Jebel Aseer on the west, but widening out as they ap proach the low level of the great desert or "Dahna'," and assuming the form of long shallow gullies where they rise again towards the table-land of Nejd. Westward the hills are frequently wooded with "Ithel," the Arabian tamarisk, with "Rind," or wild laurel, with "Sidr," a pretty dwarf acacia, besides the spreading "Markh," and other large semi-tropical trees; while under the shade of these coverts numerous wild animals make their lair: wolves, foxes, jackals, hyænas, and especially the small but ferocious Arabian panther, black-spotted on a light yellow ground, the terror of the herded gazelles, and sometimes of the hunter also. In other places the rocks are precipitous, bare, and inaccessible to all but the wild goats that browse on the occasional tufts of thin grass or dwarf shrubs springing from their clefts. The valleys, where narrow, form water-courses in the rainy season; and even in the heats of mid-summer, not unfrequently shelter deep pools, protected from sun and wind by some overhanging rock; little patches too of cultivation occur here and there, marking the permanent establishment of a few families, or a moderate stretch of green justifies the presence of some herdsmen's tents. But nowhere do the conditions of the land allow of any thing like real populousness; and the abruptness of the local barriers tends to divide the scanty inhabitants into small, almost isolated clusters, while by the same fact it detains them in a state of semi-barbarism, scarcely, if at all, affected by centuries of comparative civilization around. Farther on, however, where these valleys enter the "Dahna'," the prospect is dreary indeed: rock and sand, the latter light and ever shifting, the former abrupt and rugged, or spreading into miles of continuous stone-sheet; the whole appearing much as the bottom of the ocean might possibly do were it upheaved, and left exposed to the sun; an imagination not far removed, it may be, in this case, from the geological reality of things. But jotted as at random through the waste, where least expected amid the utter seeming drought, and discoverable only by long practice and that intimacy with the desert which few but outlaws are likely to acquire, lie small, pale-green spots, marked out by the wild palm, the feathery "ithel," and the tangled 66 semr "thorn. Here water is to be found when dug for at the depth of a few feet under earth; here also is wood enough for the modest requirements of Arab cookery; here the traveller may occasionally halt at midday or nightfall; and here the robber, flying or pursuing, may take a few hours' stolen repose. This is the land now known as El-Kora, Soleyyel, Bisna', and Aftaj; a land long unchanged, and likely long to remain so, both in itself and in its inhabitants. On its outskirts, west and north, spread the pastures of Hodeyl, a tribe once numerous and powerful, and even now not only independent of, but actively hostile to, the powers that be; to the south are the small but many villages of Bajeelah, a Yemenite or "'Arab" tribe, who, with others of their kindred, extend down to the frontiers of rich and populous Nejran; to the east stretched, in Ta'abbet-Shurran's time, the vast encampments of Temeen and 'Aamir, the chief of all the central "Most'areb," or "adscitious" clans; but these last are now crystallized into Wahhabee provinces. On all of these, now one, now the other, Ta'abbetShurran made his predatory attacks, disregardful alike of national alliance or enmity; sometimes alone, more often in company with other outlaws, to whom he acted as a temporary leader. Many of these raids have been recorded at great length by Arab chroniclers, who have besides preserved to us the verses in which the robber-hero, not more modest in self-praise than the generality of poets, celebrated his own prowess. A few of these anecdotes, rendered as literally as may be, consistently with transferring, or at least attempting to transfer, the vividness of the original Arab picture to the dissimilar canvas of the European mind, no easy task, will best illustrate the man, and those amongst whom he lived. Once on a time he had led a band of fellow-brigands on an expedition directed against the herds and havings of the Benoo Hodeyl, not far from Ta'if. On their way the party passed beneath a precipice of great height; its face showed far up the entrance of a cavern, above which Ta'abbet-Shurran's practised eyes could detect a swarm of bees hovering. Now, wild honey - for art-made hives and tame bees were yet unknown was the only substitute possessed by Arabs of those days for sugar, and ranked accordingly as a choice, almost indeed a necessary dainty. Ta'abbet and and his crew at once postponed their original design on sheep and camels in favor of this rarer booty; and by long and circuitous paths clambered up the mountain till they stood on its brow, right above the caverned cliff. Next, Ta'abbet tied a camel-rope round his waist, while his comrades made fast the other end to the stump of a tree; and, taking with him a couple of empty skins, allowed himself to be lowered against the mountain face, till he dangled opposite to the mouth of the cave, into which he then contrived to swing himself; much like Shakspeare's samphire-gatherer, or a Norwegian in quest of sea-fowl. As he had conjectured, a large store of excellent honey had collected within the cavern, and he proceeded at his leisure to fill the skins he had brought with the desired prize, unsuspicious of any danger from without. But while he thus busied himself, some men of Hodeyl, who, hidden in the brushwood on the upper slope, had watched all these doings, suddenly rushed out on the associates of the Fahm brigand, and drove them off from their post. The Hodeylees now masters of the position, began twitching the upper end of the rope that girdled Ta'abbet's waist, and thus apprised him of an unfriendly presence. Without hesitation he cut the cord with his dagger, and then advancing to the mouth of the cave looked up. 66 66 Caught," exclaimed his enemies. Caught, indeed!" sneeringly repeated Ta'abbet: "that we have yet to see. Do you mean to take ransom, and let me go unharmed?" No conditions with such as you," they answered from above. "Aha! that is your game?" rejoined the robber: "you think that you have already caught me, and killed me, and eaten my honey too, which I have been at such pains to get. No, by God! that shall never be." Thus saying, he brought the skins to the mouth of the hole, and poured out all the honey, so that it went trickling down the face of the precipice in their sight; next he took the empty skins, honeysmeared as they were, and tied them tight against his breast and body; and then, while the men of Hodeyl stood looking on in stupid amazement, let himself slip feet foremost down the crag, with such dexterity that in a few minutes he was safe at the bottom, some hundreds of yards below; and long before his intended captors, descending by the ordinary path, had circled the mountain and reached the other side, was far away beyond all chance of pursuit. So brilliant an escape deserved to be commemorated by its hero in a spirited poem, from which I will quote a few lines: "This my answer to the foemen, when alone I stood defenceless, Closed the paths behind, before me, in the hour of doubt and danger. 'Is it thus the choice ye give me? ransomed life, and scornful mercy? These, or death? - not two the offers: one alone befits the free man. The image of Death enraged at his escape, like that of the Fates idly grinning, their occupation gone, over the enemies he had slaughtered without biding their permission, was, it would seem, in Ta'abbet-Shurran's wild fancy, more than a mere poetical figure of speech. For him Arab narrative, half credulous, half sceptic, records - the desert was peopled with weird phantom shapes, all horrible, and befitting the guilty imaginings or companionship of a man of blood. Foremost among these was the "Ghoul," a monster half flesh, half spirit; tangible, yet ever changing its form; endowed with speech and reason, but for evil only; hating man, and ever seeking his harm. It may not be amiss here to remark, that præ-Islamitic Arab spiritualism, in the metaphysical sense of the word, seems, like that of the Jews, to have been nearly if not quite exhausted by the sole conception of a Supreme Ruler; all else, whatever is known among other races as soul, ghost, spectre, angel, demon, fairy, sprite, goblin, and so forth, was for them corporeal, or at best quasi-corporeal, and subject, though with certain appropriate modifications, to the principal conditions of animated matter, such as we experimentally reckon them. Nor was Mahomet himself, the Koran to witness, much ahead of his ancestors in this respect. It is not till a later date, when Persian, Greek, and Tartar ideas had infiltrated the national mind, that any thing like the Teuton, Celtic, or even Norse spirit appears among the phantasmagoria of Arab literature. As for the "ghoul," that most popular of præIslamitic superstitions, and the nearest approach to a genuine Arab" devil," it was, to complete its corporeality, male and female, and though remarkably tenacious of life, mortal; but when it happened at last to be killed, its carcass had the faculty- an annoying one for curious investigators of disappearing altogether, or of presenting at most the appearance of a small piece of burned leather, or some equally uninstructive substance. Masa'oodee, the author whose discursive work, the "Golden Meadows," has procured him the overflattering title of the " Arab Herodotus," speculates not quite unreasonably on the matter, and inclines to the opinion that the "ghoul" of old times was nothing else than some ferocious and ill-favored wild beast, probably of the ape genus, rarely met with, and exaggerated by excited imaginations into a demon. Thus much is certain, that in proortion as Arab records approach an era of increased population and of freer intercourse between province and province, the "ghoul " becomes less frequent, and ultimately disappears altogether; while more spiritual conceptions, such as "Jinn," ""Hatif" or Banshee, "'Ayid " or " haunting-ghost," and the like, take its place. However, even at the present day, the inhabitants of Beja' on the Nubian frontier, and the negroes of Kordofan and Darfoor, have the good fortune to retain their "ghouls ". "Kotrobs" they call them - of the genuine Arab kind, perhaps their gorillas. But in Ta'abbet's epoch the "ghoul," whether demon, ape, or fancy, was no rarity; and a night-long duel between the great robber and one of these unamiable beings in the dreary valley of Roha-Batan, near Kalaat-Bisha', a few days' journey to the south-east of Mecca, may at least claim what authenticity Ta'abbet-Shurran's own verses can give it. The curiosity of the record, almost unique of its kind in its completeness, may serve to excuse the childishness of the subject. "Oh! bear ye the tidings to all of my clan, The wondrous encounter in Roha's lone dell, I said, 'We are kinsmates; our fortunes are one, It spoke not, but darted to rend me. I turned, |