EMIGRATION OF BEDOUINS. 203 These robberies, however, rarely occur ; for the bashaws of the provinces and the alkaids of the douars feel it a duty incumbent on them to protect all travellers and strangers ; so that they would, in the event of a robbery being committed, expose themselves to a severe reprimand from the emperor, and an intimation that they were, by suffering such irregularity, incompetent to their situation, and would be liable to a heavy fine, or a discharge from their office, for neglect of vigilance, which, in this country, is considered very reprehensible.

Travelling through the province of Suse, I once witnessed the emigration of an extensive douar of Arabs, amounting to about 200 families. They were just leaving their habitation, where they had been encamped only a few months : it was a fine grazing country ; the camels, horses, mules, asses, oxen and cows, were all laden with the tents and baggage of these wanderers. On enquiring the cause of this emigration, I was told that the inhabitants were infested with musquitoes and fleas to such a degree, that they had all unanimously resolved to emigrate to another place, which they had fixed upon, and that they would reach it by night. These wandering Arabs, without any fixed habitation, are of a restless, ungovernable spirit : they never cultivate the earth, as do the Arabs of the plains of Marocco, but live, for the most part, on camels' milk, occasionally killing a camel or a goat for food ; grazing their