Page 12 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 3

48 THE BEDOUIN TRIBES
Sami Pasha in 1011, and there hold a prisoner for almost a year.®

The grievance was aggravated by the fact that he had pieviou.sly
offered his assistance to Sami Pasha for the subjugation of the
Druzcs. He dreads any extension of Turkish authority towards
the desert, and strongly opposed a scheme set on foot in 1013 to
cany a branch of the Hejaz Railway from Jizah to Qasr cl-A'zraq,
and thence down the W. Sirhan to Kilf. In 1014 he refused to -
collect camels for the Ottoman Government, who were in need of "
transport animals for the Egyptian campaign, thereby greatly =
*. •
enhancing their difficulties. He removed his people into their "
eastern pasturages, where the Turks had no hold over them, and =
he is said to have acted similarly a year later and, in 10U5, to have ■
joined the Sherif sf Mecca.
E. of the Ruweilah and the Wuld ‘Ali, the Syrian Desert up to the
Euphrates is held by the ‘Amarat and by the two great subdivisions
of the Bishr, the FecPan and the Siba‘ (Sba), who claim descent
from various mythical heroes of whom Wall was the progenitor.
The ‘Amarat country is the SE. corner of the Syrian Desert border­
ing on the Euphrates from Kerbela to above Hit. The tribesmen
touch the N. edge of the Nefud and go down SE. into Shammar
territory if pasturage is lacking elsewhere, maintaining a truce
with the Sheikhs of that dira. The early spring finds them in a wide
depression, the Qa'rah (GaTah), two days’ journey W. of Hit, while
in summer they come back to the Euphrates or cluster about the
springs in the Ha*uran valley, round Mat.
The Fed'an range from Aleppo to Deir on both sides of the
Euphrates and up the Khiibur valley almost to the Sinjar. The
Siba‘, famous breeders of camels, are seated on the middle sections

of the Palmyra road. The}- go up towards Homs and Hamah Oil
the west, to Resafah on the east, and north almost to Aleppo. If
pasture is lacking on the Syrian side of the desert, they seek it in
the Fed'an country and in winter their Sheikhs come down, Vith
those of the ‘Amarat and the Fed'an, to Mat and the Wadi
Sirhan. The ‘Amarat also cross the Euphrates on occasion, and
camp with the Fed'an along the Khiibur. The Wuld Suleiman,
who roam between Teima and the Nefud, are of Fed'an lineage
and a part of Bishr, but they stand politically outside the con­
federacy ; for, like their allies and neighbours the Fuqara, they pay-
tribute to Ibn Rashid. They have not many camels/ but own
a few patches of palm-growing lands in the Harrah Kheibar, which
are cultivated, on their behalf, by the Huteirn.
The paramount chief of the ‘Amarat is of the house of Hadhdhal
Fahd Bey being the present sheikh. His tents number about 3 OGo’