Page 38 - A Hand Book of Arabia Vol 2_Neat

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THE CAMEL TRADE OF ARABIA 21 ’

coulcl be brought into S}Tia. An attempt to take camels in large
.numbers via Dlarbekr or even up the Euphrates, and so direct to
Aleppo, would not meet with success. The journey is too long, and
the difficulty of feeding the camels on the way too great. Pasturage
is always scanty along frequented roads. The Ruweilah, who are
the camel breeders nearest to the Syrian frontier, have shown great
unwillingness to sell to the Turks. In common with other tribes i
bordering on Syria, their chief anxiety since the outbreak of war
between Turkey and Great Britain seems to have been lest their
camels should be commandeered for military purposes. They
hastily settled their differences with one another and retired into
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the centre of the Hamad. The Sukhur and the Huweitat crossed
the Wadi Sirhan and took refuge in Ibn Sha'lan’s country. When
last heard of, in 1915, they were east of ‘Amud, in the Wadyan, and
had penetrated as far east as Mat and Ibn Hadhdhal’s pasturages.
The Turks commissioned Mohammed Bassam, Ibn Rawwaf, and Ibn
Dhiyab, well-known Damascene buyers, to send out to the Ruweilah
and purchase from them, but the attempt was made very half­
heartedly, and the results were next to nothing. The camels used
in the attack on the Canal, in 1915, were procured in Syria and were
unsuitable for a desert campaign ; consequently the losses among
them were heavy. At the present time it is possibly to the
advantage of the Ottoman Government that the Bedouins must be
short of ready money and that the surplus of camels must be double
that of ordinary years, since there was no selling done in 1914 ;
but, so far as our information goes, it points to the conclusion that
the Turks met with no less difficulty in 1916 in providing camel
transport for Sinai and sought vainly to meet the need by applying
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to Central Arabian Sheikhs. It seems likely that the Anazah J
still holding back in their eastern pasturages, an attitude which
should be encouraged.

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