so in Nejd, Yemen and Hadramut; in the Hejaz and the north
a faint line of demarcation may be observed between the races.

Military qualities.

The Arabs are good soldiers but poor generals. Personal courage,
wonderful endurance of privation, fixity of purpose, and a contempt of
death are qualities common to almost every race, tribe and clan that
compose the Arab nation. In skirmishing and harassing they have few
equals, while at close quarters they have often shown themselves capable
of maintaining, armed with swords and spears alone, a desperate struggle
against guns and bayonets, neither giving nor receiving quarter. Nor are
they wholly ignorant of tactics, their armies, when engaged in regular
war, being divided into centre and wings, with skirmishers in front and
a reserve behind, often screened at the outset of the engagement by the
camels of the expedition. These animals, kneeling and ranged in long
parallel rows, form a sort of entrenchment, from behind which the
soldiers of the main body fire their matchlocks, while the front
divisions, opening out, act on either flank of the enemy. This
arrangement of troops may be traced in Arab records as far back as the
5th century, and was often exemplified during the Wahhabi wars.

Arab women are scarcely less distinguished for their bravery than the
men. Records of armed heroines occur frequently in the chronicles or
myths of the pre-Islamitic time; and in authentic history the Battle of
the Camel, 656 A.D., where Ayesha, the wife of Mahomet, headed the
charge, is only the first of a number of instances in which Arab amazons
have taken, sword in hand, no inconsiderable share in the wars and
victories of Islam. Even now it is the custom for an Arab force to be
always accompanied by some courageous maiden, who, mounted on a
blackened camel, leads the onslaught, singing verses of encouragement
for her own, of insult for the opposing tribe. Round her litter the
fiercest of the battle rages, and her capture or death is the signal of
utter rout; it is hers also to head the triumph after the victory of her
clan.

Education.

There is little education, in the European sense of the word, in Arabia.
Among the Bedouins there are no schools, and few, even of the most
elementary character, in the towns or villages. Where they exist, little
beyond the mechanical reading of the Koran, and the equally mechanical
learning of it by rote, is taught. On the other hand, Arab
ma