The fondness of an Arab for traditional history of the most distinguished actions of their remote ancestors is proverbial: professed story-tellers are ever the appendages to a man of rank: his friends will assemble before his tent, or on the platforms with which the houses of the Moorish Arabs are roofed, and there listen, night after night, to a continued history for sixty, or sometimes one hundred nights together. It is a great exercise of genius, and a peculiar gift, held in high estimation amongst them. They have a quickness and clearness of delivery, with a perfect command of words, surprising to a European ear: they never hesitate, are never at a loss; their descriptions are highly poetical, and their relations exemplified by figure and metaphor, the most striking and appropriate: their extempore songs are also full of fire, and possess many beautiful and happy similes. Certain tribes are celebrated for this gift of extempore speaking and singing; the chiefs cultivate the propensity in their children; and it is often possessed, to an astonishing degree, by men who are unable either to read or write. Arabic songs go to the heart, and excite greatly the passions: I have seen a circle of Arabs straining their eyes with a fixed attention at one moment, and bursting with loud laughter; at the next, melting into tears, and clasping their hands in all the ecstacy of grief and sympathy. Their attachment to pastoral life is ever favourable to love. Many of these children of the desert possess intelligence and feeling, which belong not to the savage; accompanied by an heroic courage, and a thorough contempt of every mode of gaining their livelihood, except by the sword and gun. An Arab values himself chiefly on his expertness in arms and horsemanship, and on hospitality. Hospitality was ever habitual to them. At this day, the greatest reproach to an Arab tribe is, “that none of their men have the heart to give, nor their women to deny.” Nor does this feeling of liberality alone extend to the chiefs, or Arabs of high birth: I have known the poor and wandering Bedouin to practise a degree of charity and hospitality far beyond his means, from a sense of duty alone. Notwithstanding all the savageness of an Arab, there are sometimes noble thoughts which seem to cross over his powerful mind; and then again to leave him choked up with weeds of too strong a growth to be rooted out.