Page 396 - Travels in Arabis (Vol I)

XXII.] TRAVELS IN OMAN. 357

and which now, in their filiation, dialect, and
advance in civilization, differ so materially

from each other, that it has been necessary
to treat of them severally.

In the earlier stages of society mankind
readily acknowledged obedience to the person
to whom they owed their being. By a very

natural chain of reasoning we can follow the
extension of an authority which was vested

in the father of a family over the different
branches of it, or, in other words, a tribe.

This would continue until the number of the
tribe became too unwieldy to follow up their

marches, or the scanty pasturage was insuffi­
.
*
cient for the increased number of their flocks
It then became necessary that a portion should
separate and seek for sustenance in more

distant provinces. Age for a time would still
continue to confine the authority to the pa­
triarch, or his immediate descendants, who

had conducted them in their wanderings ; but,
as the latter increased in number and rami­

fications, it must necessarily happen that the
heads of the different tribes would select some
person (though probably the nearer the parent

Gen. xiii. 7.