the camel is "the ship of the desert," the market towns on the margin
of the sandy wastes are the ports of the desert. Their bazaars hold
everything that the nomad needs. Their suburbs are a shifting series of
shepherd encampments or extensive caravanseries for merchant and pack
animal, like the _abaradion_ of Timbuctoo, which receives annually from
fifty to sixty thousand camels.[1154] Their industries develop partly in
response to the demand of the desert or trans-desert population. The
fine blades of Damascus reflected the Bedouin's need of the best weapon.
Each city has its sphere of desert influence. The province of Nejd in
Central Arabia is commercially subservient to Bagdad, Busrah, Koweit and
Bahrein.[1155] The bazaars of Samarkand and Tashkent exist largely for
the scattered nomads of Turkestan. Ancient Gaza[1156] and Askelon
fattened on the Egyptian trade across the Desert of Shur, as Petra,
Bostra and Damascus on the thin but steady streams of nomad products
flowing in from the Syrian Desert.

[Sidenote: Nomad industries.]

The abundant leisure of nomadic life encourages the beginning of
industry, but rarely advances it beyond the household stage, owing to
the thin, family-wise dispersion of population which precludes division
of labor. Such industry as exists consists chiefly in working up the raw
materials yielded by the herds. Among the Bedouins, blacksmiths and
saddlers are the only professional artisans; these are regarded with
contempt and are never of Bedouin stock.[1157] In the ancient world,
industry reached its zero point in Arabia, and in modern times shows
meager development there. On the other hand the Saharan Arabs developed
an hereditary guild of expert well-makers, which seems to date back to
remote times, and is held in universal honor.[1158]

[Sidenote: Oriental rugs.]

It is to the tent-dwellers of the world, however, that we apparently owe
the oriental rug. This triumph of the weaver's art seems to have
originated among pastoral nomads, who developed it in working up the
wool and hair of their sheep, goats and camels; but it early became
localized as a specialized industry in the towns and villages of
irrigated districts on the borders of the grazing lands, where the
nomads had advanced to sedentary life. Therefore in the period of the
Caliphate, from 632 to 1258, we find these brilliant flowers of the
loom, blooming like the Persian gardens, in Persian Farsistan,
Khusistan, Kirman and