The culture of letters, however, does not lead, in the education of the Arab, to any neglect of the art of managing a horse or of handling fire-arms. As soon as a child can sit on a horse, he is placed, first of all, on the back of a colt, and then on the full grown animal. When his frame begins to take form, he is taken out hunting, and taught to fire at a mark, and to bury his spear in the flanks of a wild boar. By the time he has attained his sixteenth or seventeenth year, has learned the Koran, and has been accustomed to fast, he is married. The Prophet has said: "Marry when young. Marriage subdues the glance of the man's eye, and regulates the conduct of the woman." Up to that epoch, paternal tenderness watches over the purity of his manners with unceasing vigilance. The lad is never left to himself. A tutor or an attendant accompanies him wherever he goes. Men of dissolute habits and women of a loose course of life are carefully kept away from him. He is expected to bring to the companion of his life a body in robust health, and a soul untainted by pollution. They select for him a youthful maiden of birth equal to his own, of unspotted reputation, and, if possible, of great beauty. It is the women of the family who ascertain these points, being permitted to examine the tents in which dwell young girls of marriageable years. A betrothal takes place, followed in due time by the wedding. The first of these days of festival, which like those at the birth of a child, last for some time, is called _nahr refoude_, or the day of the rape. Four or five hundred horsemen, magnificently attired, riding their finest horses, carrying their most valuable arms, and conducted by the kinsmen of the bride, proceed to the tent of the latter. They are accompanied by women closely veiled and mounted on camels and mules. The youngest and most beautiful damsels of the tribe are chosen for this joyful mission. The journey, which sometimes lasts three days, is one continual fantasia. The horsemen gallop to and fro, there is a constant discharge of fire-arms, and the women utter that long drawn cry of love and joy which fills the heart of the children of the desert with ineffable emotion. At the arrival of this triumphal procession, the father of the bride comes forth and exclaims "You are welcome, O guests of Allah!" Then follow banquetings and rejoicings until the morrow, when they again set out. This time the bride forms one of the cavalcade, mounted on a camel, or mule, richly caparisoned. She has taken no leave of her father. An almost false sense of delicacy forbids her to appear in his presence at a moment when her fate is about to undergo an entire change. She is equally prohibited from seeing her elder brothers. Her girlhood's life is finished. Henceforth she belongs to another family.