The Arabs of Midian always compare the Hutaym with the Ghagar
(Ghajar) or Gypsies of Egypt; and this is the point which gives
the outcasts a passing interest. I have not yet had an
opportunity of carefully studying the race; nor can I say whether
it shows any traces of skill in metal-working. Meanwhile, we must
inquire whether these Helots, now so dispersed, are not old
immigrants of Indian descent, who have lost their Aryan language,
like the Egyptian Ghajar. In that case they would represent the
descendants of the wandering tribes who worked the most ancient
ateliers. Perhaps they may prove to be congeners of the men of
the Bronze Age, and of the earliest waves of Gypsy-immigration
into Europe.





NOTE.



A list of the shells collected by the second Khedivial Expedition
on the shore of Midian and the Gulf of 'Akabah, by Edgar A.
Smith, Esq., British Museum.

I. Gastropoda.
1. Conus textile, Linne.
2. Conus sumatrensis, Hwass.
3. Conus catus var., Hwass.
4. Conus larenatus, Hwass.