trim their moustaches according to the practice derived from the Prophet; others shave them, or allow them to hang, Persian-like, over the lips. The beard is represented by two tangled tufts upon the chin, and where the whiskers should be, the place is either bare or thinly covered with straggling hair. The temperament of the Bedouins is either nervous or bilious, rarely sanguine, never phlegmatic. They are not seldom subject to attacks of melancholy, which make them dislike the sound of the human voice and long for solitude. From living constantly in the open air, the nomadic Arabs acquire a remarkable acuteness in all their senses. Their powers of vision and of hearing improve by continual exercise, and as their piercing eye sweeps over the desert it distinguishes objects at an incredible distance. Their sense of smelling, too, is extremely nice. The true Bedouin, when in the tainted atmosphere of towns, is always known by bits of cotton in his nostrils, or his kerchief tightly drawn over his nose, a heavy frown marking extreme disgust. Declining the shelter of a house when business calls him to visit crowded cities, he passes the night in a garden or public square, rather than breathe the confined air of an apartment. One of his most singular faculties is the power of distinguishing the footsteps of men and beasts on the sand, in the same manner as the American Indians discover impressions made upon the grass. From inspecting the footsteps, an Arab can tell whether the individual belonged to his own or some neighbouring tribe, and is thus able to judge whether he be a stranger or a friend. He likewise knows from the faintness or depth of the impression whether the person carried a load or not, whether he passed the same day or several days before. From examining the intervals between the steps, he judges whether or not he was fatigued, as the pace becomes then more irregular and the intervals unequal, hence he calculates the chances of overtaking him. Every Arab can distinguish the footmarks of his own camels from those of his neighbours; he knows whether the animal was pasturing or loaded, or mounted by one or more persons; and can often discover from marks in the sand certain defects or peculiarities of formation that serve him as a clue to ascertain the owner. This sagacity, which enables the Arab to read in the sands of the desert as in a printed volume, becomes extremely useful in the pursuit of fugitives, or in searching after stolen cattle. Instances occur of camels being traced by their masters to the residence of the thief at the distance of five or six days’ journey; and, incredible as it may seen, a Bedouin shepherd can track his own camel in a sandy valley, when thousands of other footsteps cross the road in all directions. Thus the proverbially unstable and fugitive sands reveal many a secret to the practised glance of the Arab; and every footstep becomes a witness recording the offender’s guilt.