In every tent was hung a gun, as robbers are frequent visitors, and each dweller in the tent must protect his own. He keeps a fierce and noisy dog that sees a stranger far across the sands, and one is followed far beyond village confines by these canine police. Polygamy is practised by the Bedouin more than it is by his city brothers. I visited in the tent of a woman who was the second wife of her husband, the other wife living in a tent adjoining. She had two children, and the first wife one, and from what I heard there was not the most pleasant relationship between them. Divorce is also one of the evils, and these primitive men take advantage of it to an alarming degree. Nearly every one I met had been divorced some time or other. It was such a common occurrence that it produced no feeling of shame in the woman who had been divorced. The Bedouins are so proud of their lineage that they wish to keep the tribal blood pure, and it leads to intermarriage. Cousins are frequently married, and often a whole tribe is related in some manner. I was told that the Bedouin settled an argument with a scolding or recalcitrant wife by giving her a good chastising with a stick. While in Cairo I met a most charming Bedouin who had left the sands for the gaieties of the city. He was quite the polished gentleman to be found in any city, and I was surprised when told that he had divorced his Bedouin wife because she was not as progressive as his cosmopolitanism now required, and my gossipy friend informed me, “They used to quarrel dreadfully and he would beat her most frightfully.” I saw the lady in question, who had returned to the tribe and remarried, and I rather admired the hardihood of the somewhat effeminate man who would dare to try to beat this great stalwart Bedouin woman, who looked as if she would take an active part in any chastening that might be passing around her tent. There is no such word as “privacy” in the Bedouin vocabulary; their private life must be an open book to all the tribe. Their one great blessing is the wonderfully clear, dry air, which gives them health and vigour and makes them immune to many of the diseases that afflict their Egyptian neighbour. But if they leave the desert and go to live within the cities, they fall easy victims to the great white plague, tuberculosis.