DESERT BEDOUINS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 14, 11 October 1932, Page 7

DESERT BEDOUINS

Hai’d Fight for Life EFFECT OF DROUGHT On Threshold of Starvation Starvation stalks among the desert Bedouins of Northern Arabia. Lean and ragged, after three years of deprivation, due to scanty rainfall, the weary tribesmen are trickling into Transjordan, seeking food. For weeks in the earlier months of this year they subsisted on edible roots. - At best, the Bedouins of the Northern desert regions of the Arabian Peninsula live on the threshold of starvation (says a writer in the “Cape Argus”). Except in the spring, when there are a few inches of rainfall, the desert is a vast parched area of rocks and sand, where it seems impossible to the Westerner that any living thing can exist. Normally a cup of camel’s milk and a handful of dates is a Bedouin's daily ration. Occasionally he can afford a cup of coffee, a favourite beverage. Bread is rare and meat is rarer. A feeble camel renders his last service on the tribal meat platter. Camel’s milk cheese, kneaded into little cakes, and baked until they are as hard as clay bricks, are palatable to the tribesmen and keep indefinitely. Western travellers, however, object to tlie numerous camel hairs they con-' tain. Few animals inhabit the desert, but now and then a horned lizard adorns the festive board; desert rats also are relished and gazelle meat makes a feast.

Despite the hard life of the desert, with its dread sandstorms, loneliness, temperatures that chill the tribesmen during the night and scorch them at more than 130 degrees F. during the day, and lack of water that takes heavy toll of human and animal life, the Bedouin is happy on a desert trail

Vegetation Scanty. Normally the desert is almost devoid of vegetation, except for shrivelled scrubby bushes and stunted trees. In some areas the spring rain, like a powerful tonic, causes these to come to life and new growth to sprout and thrive. Men and animals have plenty of food during this period, but it lasts only a few weeks. Then comes the long rainless season. The nights remain cool, even in the summer. At the lirst peep of the sun over the eastern horizon the stimulating atmosphere quickly disapjwars. By noon even the Bedouin is driven to shelter. The midday desert breeze is like the breath of a blast furnace. Eggs can be cooked on the torrid sand.

The Bedouin pities the sedentary Arab who confines himself to the four walls of a house. He has greater pity for the merchant who spends his days in a stuffy shop on a narrow bust-

ness street and wears silks, which the desert nomad thinks only women should wear. The Bedouin is fully clothed when he dons a loin-cloth and a 'burnous that resembles a long night-shirt, and a turban —his idea of the fashion for men. Some wear sandals. .Baths are almost unknown to many ■ Bedouin tribesmen because there is no water.

Large herds of sheep and goats are kept by Bedouins who wander on the fringe of the desert where there is ample forage, but those tribes which penetrate more arid, isolated regions are camel. breeders and traders. The latter looked upon the camel as a special gift of their god. Help That 'Camels Give. Camel’s milk is consumed by both men and animals when forage for the animals is not available. Camel’s meat staves off starvation when the tribal larder is empty, camel’s hair furnishes material for clothes, and the awkward beasts are the only transports for the broad, sandy wastes where water holes are few and far between. Bedouins are Mohammedans, but many nomads perform their ablutions with sand instead of water. They could be polygamists under Moslem law, but the hard life of the desert has forced monogany upon most of them. No one passes a Bedouin camp hungry, regardless of the poverty of the t-ride. The tribesmen are famous for their hospitality. There is no latchstring on the Bedouin tent, and the food cache is thrown open to visitors. For that reason many of the povertystricken tribes camp off the most travelled routes to avoid embarrassment, because they cannot extend the usual Bedouin hospitality.