'Handbook of Hejaz' [‎12v] (31/204)

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therefore, will be best treated in the next section under
each separate town.
(3) Beduin Life has certain common features which
distinguish it to some extent from that of the nomadic
societies elsewhere in Arabia. While, on the one hand,
outside the towns, nomadism is paramount throughout
Hejaz, there being few considerable villages or even hamlets,
the towns, on the other hand, owing to their external rela
tions, remain mo;e independent of the unsettled conditions
round them than in any other area where nomadism pre
vails to anything like the same degree. The result is that
the sharpest contrast exists between urban and rural life in
Hejaz. The townsmen are among the best off, the Beduins
among the worst off, in Arabia. Thanks to their detach
ment from the settled communities, and to the poverty of
the soil, the Hejaz Beduins are exceptionally unproductive
and uncommercial ; and further, owing to the temptation
offered by the pilgrim traffic and also to the check on their
natural free development, so long imposed by the con
dominium of the Porte and the Emir, they are of exception
ally predatory character, low morale, and disunited organiza
tion. Though there are very large tribes, such as the Harb
and 'Ateibah, there are no chiefs, except the King himself,
exercizing any such paramount authority as is vested, e.g. in
the great 'Anezah Sheikhs ; and the tribes act less as units
than anywhere else, sub-sections considering themselves
free to go their own ways. In sum, while the nomads
are individually less to be trusted in Hejaz than in almost
anv other Arabian province, engagements made on behalf
of groups and safe conducts given, in all sincerity, by their
Sheikhs, have less validity and less local range.
Details of the several Hejaz tribes are given later in
Section V. The principal units and their diras are, sum
marily, as follows
In the extreme north are the Huweitat (also N.E. outside
the Hejaz limits) and the Beni ? Atiyah, closely allied.