[19] See Burckhardt's _Travels in Syria_, p. 294 f.; _Beduinen und Wahaby_, p. 144 f.; Niebuhr's _Beschreibung von Arabien_, p. 48; Lane's _The Thousand and One Nights_, II., 423, note 21; Wetzstein's _Sprachliches_, p. 28 f.; Denham and Clapperton's _Travels and Discoveries in Africa_, p. xli; Warburton's _The Crescent and the Cross_, fifth ed., II., 167 f.; Pierrotti's _Customs and Traditions of Palestine_, p. 210 f.; Burton's _Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah_, III., 86; Thomson's _The Land and the Book_, II., 40-43; Merrill's _East of the Jordan_, pp. 488-491; Harmer's _Observations_, fifth ed., I., 388 f.; Doughty's _Travels in Arabian Deserts_, I., 228; _Studies in Oriental Social Life_, pp. 73-142; W. Robertson Smith's _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_, p. 149 f. Compare also Gen. 24 : 12-14; Deut. 23 : 3, 4; 1 Sam. 25 : 10, 11; 1 Kings 18 : 4; Job 22 : 7; Matt. 10 : 42; Mark 9 : 41; John 4 : 9. Durzee Bey, a native chieftain in Mesopotamia, having put a bit of roast meat into the mouth of Dr. Hamlin, as they sat together in his domicil, said: "By that act I have pledged you every drop of my blood, that _while you are in my territory_ no evil shall come to you. _For that space of time_ we are brothers."[20] "Where enmity subsists, the fiercer Arabs will not sit down at the same table with their adversary; sitting down together betokens reconciliation."[21] [20] Hamlin's _Among the Turks_, p. 175 f. [21] Russell's _Natural History of Aleppo_, Book II., chap. 4 (I., 232). A covenant of salt is, however, permanent and unalterable, as the truce or treaty is not. Yet this distinction, recognized by Orientals, does not seem to be observed by all writers on Oriental customs, even by those who are generally observant and experienced. It is true that the sharing of salt is usually an accompaniment of bread-sharing; hence, a covenant of salt between two parties is generally, although not always, made by their partaking of bread and salt together. Moreover, because salt is a common ingredient in Oriental bread, the eating of bread with another in the East may include the sharing of salt with him; but in such a case it is the salt, and not the bread, which is the nexus of the perpetual covenant, in its distinction from the temporary compact of hospitality in the sharing of bread. The bread is the vehicle of the covenant-making salt. Indeed, they have it for a proverb among Arabs and Syrians, "My bread had no salt in it," as a mode of accounting for any act of treachery, or failure in fidelity toward one who was a partaker of the bread of hospitality.