This extraordinary land is inhabited by a no less extraordinary people, divided into two great classes, widely different in their pursuits: the inhabitants of cities and towns, who live by tillage and commerce, and the natives of the desert, who follow a pastoral and predatory life, and consider the former as a separate and inferior race. Through all antiquity this characteristic distinction has remained inviolate, and as it is founded in the nature of the soil is even now as strongly marked as it was in the times of Abraham or Isaac. In personal appearance, the wandering Arabs or Bedouins are of the middle size, lean and athletic. The legs though fleshless are well made, the arms thin, with muscles like whipcords. Deformity is checked among this nomadic race by the circumstance that no weakly infant can live through the hardships of a Bedouin life. The complexion varies from the deepest Spanish to a chocolate hue, and its varieties are attributed by the people to blood. The black hair is either closely shaved, or hanging down in ragged elf-locks to the breast. Most popular writers describe the Arab eye as large, ardent, and black, but, according to Captain Burton, who, on his adventurous pilgrimage to Meccah, had full opportunity for observing many tribes, it is generally dark brown or green-brown, small, round, restless, deep-set, and fiery, denoting keen inspection, with an ardent temperament and an impassioned character. The habit of pursing up the skin below the orbits, and half-closing the lids to prevent dazzle, plants the outer angles with premature crow’s-feet. Another peculiarity is the sudden way in which the eye opens, especially under excitement. This, combined with its fixity of glance, forms an expression now of lively fierceness, then of exceeding sternness. The look of a chief is dignified and grave even to pensiveness, yet there is not much difference in the expression of the eye between men of the same tribe, who have similar pursuits which engender similar passions. ‘Expression,’ as Captain Burton well remarks, ‘is the grand diversifier of appearance among civilised people; in the desert it knows few varieties.’ The bushy black eyebrows are crooked and bent in sign of thoughtfulness. The forehead is high, broad, and retreating. The temples are deep, the cheek-bones salient, which combined with the lantern-jaw often gives a death’s-head appearance to the face. The nose is pronounced, generally aquiline, the ears small and well-cut, the mouth irregular, the teeth, as usual among Orientals, white, even, short, and broad. According to Chateaubriand, no sign would betray the savage in the Arab’s countenance, if he constantly kept his mouth closed; it is when he shows his teeth, of a dazzling whiteness like those of the jackal, that his wild nature shows itself. In this he differs from the American Indian, whose ferocity appears in the eye, while the mouth has a mild expression. Some tribes