'The Expedition for the survey of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, carried on by order of the British government, in the years 1835, 1836, and 1837; preceded by geographical and historical notices of the regions situated between the rivers Nile and Indus. In four volumes. With fourteen maps and charts, and embellished with ninety-seven plates, besides numerous wood-cuts. Volume the first.' [‎545] (636/905)

CHAP. XXI.]
GIPSIES AND ARABS.
545
On the plain of Esdraelon, and some other tracts towards the
south-eastern side of the territory, Arabs are frequently seen
with their tents and flocks, and occasionally are perceived the
wicker booths of the Turkomans; but on the slopes of Lebanon
and those of the Nosarian range, the tents of the Arabs are
fewer, and the Turkoman booths more numerous; both,
however, are mixed with Kurd villages, and occasionally with
the more portable habitations of the Gipsies, here called Gipsies of
No wars : these are the Xebeques and Zingani of Asia Minor, Syria ■
and the Kurpadh of Aleppo (see above, pages 375 and 436),
whose manners and customs, scanty dresses and temporary
dwellings, seem to carry us back to that primitive state of the
world in which permanent buildings were unknown.
The country round the Dead Sea, as well as the tracts The Mousta-
northward, along both sides of the Jordan, are occupied by the rabe -
Moustarabe, who, as will elsewhere be shown, are descended
from the ancient Arabs, mixed with the children of Lot and
the different branches from Abraham ; l and also with some of
the still earlier inhabitants of the land, as the Emim, &c. But
the dispersion of the descendants of Isaac had in fact com
menced in the time of Shalmanasar, and it continued to
increase during the reigns of the Ptolemies and the first Roman
emperors, when the people occupied the different parts of the
world, to which the destruction of Jerusalem is generally
supposed to have driven them.
A remnant of the Hebrews is still to be found in the cities Hebrews.
ofTabariyah, Safet, Nabulus, Hebron, Damascus and Aleppo,
as well as in every large town, and occasionally also in the
villages of Judea and the Decapolis, but especially in Jerusalem,
near the site of the beloved temple. 8 Few of them are now
shepherds or cultivators, merchandise and different kinds of
trades being their principal occupations; and they receive from
the government that secondary kind of protection which the
Muslim is wont to bestow (see pages 253, 377) on those who
1 The descendants of Isaac, Ismael, and the sons of Ketnrah.—Gen., chaps.
XVI., XXI. and XXV.
8 Many of this people go from Poland and other distant places to spend
their last days in Palestine.
VOL. I. 4 A