Page 46 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 1,2

24 SOCIAL SURVEY

sheikhs of the latter have residences, landed property, and interests
of various kinds among the former ; and the nbcessi y t.nc er
which the man of town or village lies to enter, or pass his goods
through, a domain of nomads and to become to some degree dependent
on them, if he travels or trades abroad, leads him to cultivate rela­
tions. He will be found, therefore, t.o be seldom of fellah type, out
usually a man of his hands, hard and warlike, who might easily pass
for a Bedouin in Cairo or Aleppo, and supplies fine fighting material.
The most Bedouin of all the Arabian towns in social character is Ha il:
the least are the.Holy Cities and the towns of the Oman littoral anci
v .*•
the Yemen highlands ; but the inhabitants of Hie last are as belli­
cose as any Arab of the steppes.
The towns of Arabia are rarely metropolitan*. They <yrc generally
only overgrown villages, on which the other villages in the same
oases are either not at all, or only politically, dependent. In almpst
no instance is an Arabian town an emporium of its neighbourhood.
Usually unproductive itself, it is neither a collecting * nor a clis.-
tributing centre. What Arabia does produce for more than its own
domestic consumption is, strange to say, almost all due to nomads
and mountaineers; and the inland towns have little share in it.'
The Qasim towns, which organize much of the transit trade in
Central Arabia and are more commercial!}'’ minded than other
Arabian settlements, are the chief exceptions, besides the two Holy
Cities of the west, which must be set apart. These are cosmopolitan
resorts, living on their visitors, and enjoying a privileged position.
They maintain populations very like those of protected Arab towns
outside the peninsula; but it must not be supposed that they are
either centres of production or metropolitan emporia.

. Products
A land of this physical and social character is not likely to nrodlice
much beyond its own food supnlv or even ' ,, PloclUce
As a matter of fact, it is largeh? depended for ?*««“•
staples, the date-fruit, on importation ■ „,i n OI\° lts c ,le^ food
earliest centres for the cultivation of coffee' if.1°ugh11.t w.as oue of the
with Brazilian and East Indian berries whill Uppi.e.s ltself mainly
own small but precious, growth to foreign con'uni^ 'r8 ni0f5t of its
hides, and wool are the only other inn1 ^ Gums, butter
worth mention. " mer Pinnate articles of expofc
It is, however, a principal source of “ *
military importance, the camel and one
camel. This, not the towns, but ; «P«i«Uy the n'“ch
"" n°',wtlic