Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah — Volume 2 by Sir Richard Francis Burton
page 87 of 559 (15%)
page 87 of 559 (15%)
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family. The Ishmaelities are sub-Caucasian, and are denoted in history
as the Arab al-Mustarribah, the insititious or half-caste Arab. Oriental ethnography, which, like most Eastern sciences, luxuriates in nomenclative distinction, recognises a fourth race under the name of Arab al-Mustajamah. These barbarized Arabs are now represented by such a population as that of Meccah. That Aus and Khazraj, the Himyaritic tribes which emigrated to Al-Hijaz, mixed with the Amalikah, the Jurham, and the Katirah, also races from Al-Yaman, and with the Hebrews, a northern branch of the Semitic family, we have ample historical evidence. And they who know how immutable is race in the Desert, will scarcely doubt that the Badawi of Al-Hijaz preserves in purity the blood transmitted to him by his ancestors.[FN#6] [p.80] I will not apologise for entering into details concerning the personale of the Badawin[FN#7]; a precise physical portrait of race, it has justly been remarked, is the sole deficiency in the pages of Bruce and of Burckhardt. The temperament of the Hijazi is not unfrequently the pure nervous, as the height of the forehead and the fine texture of the hair prove. Sometimes the bilious, and rarely the sanguine, elements predominate; the lymphatic I never saw. He has large nervous centres, and well-formed spine and brain, a conformation favourable to longevity. Bartema well describes his colour as a dark leonine; it varies from the deepest Spanish to a chocolate hue, and its varieties are attributed by the people to blood. The skin is hard, dry, and soon wrinkled by exposure. The xanthous complexion is rare, though not unknown in |
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