JEBEL SHAMMAR and the northwestern desert, remain to be considered. The chief characteristics of this region are the extensive _Nefuds_ or sandy-deserts and the nomad population. Jebel Shammar more than any part of Arabia is the tenting ground for the sons of Kedar. Everywhere are the black-worsted booths—the houses of goat-hair, so celebrated in Arabic poetry and song. Place-names on the map of this country are not villages or cities but watering-places for cattle and encampments of the tribes from year to year. From the Gulf of Akaba to the Euphrates, and as far north as their flocks can find pasture, the nomads call the land their own. Many of them are subject to the government of Nejd and pay a small annual tribute; some are nominally under Turkish rule and others know no ruler save their Sheikh and have no law save that of immemorial Bedouin custom. Burckhardt discourses of these people like one who has dwelt among them, tasting the sweet and bitter of their hungry, homely life. He describes their tents and their simple furniture, arms, utensils, diet, arts, industry, sciences, diseases, religion, matrimony, government, and warfare. He tells of their hospitality to the stranger; their robbery of the traveller; their blood-revenge and blood-covenants; their slaves and servants; their feasts and rejoicings; their domestic relations and public functions; their salutations and language; and how at last they bury their dead in a single garment, scraping out a shallow grave in hard-burned soil and heaping on a few rough stones to keep away the foul hyenas. Burckhardt devotes a considerable portion of his book to an enumeration of the Bedouin-tribes and their numerous subdivisions. These will prove of great service to those who visit or cross the northern part of the Peninsula. The most important tribe is that of the _Anaeze_. They are nomads in the strictest acceptation of the word, for they continue during the whole year in almost constant motion. Their summer quarters are near the Syrian frontiers and in winter they retire into the heart of the desert or toward the Euphrates. When the tents are few they are pitched in a circle and called _dowar_, in greater numbers, they encamp in rows, one behind the other, especially along a rivulet or wady-bed; such encampments are called _Nezel_. The Sheikh’s or chief’s tent has the principal place generally toward the direction whence guests or foes may be expected. The Anaeze tents are always of black goat’s-hair; some other tribes have stuff striped white and black. Even the richest among them never have more than one tent unless he happen to have a second wife who cannot live on good terms with the first; he then pitches a smaller tent near his own. But polygamy is very unusual among the Bedouin Arabs, although divorce is common. The tent furniture is simplicity itself; camel-saddles and cooking utensils with carpets and provision skins, are all the Arab housewife has to look after.