HOW THE BEDOUINS CONQUER THIRST.

Inangahua Times, Volume IX, Issue 1479, 5 December 1884, Page 2

HOW THE BEDOUINS CONQUER THIRST.

i ♦ ■ In the ' Waterless Land ' water is the paramount question. If it beasWd how a krge body of Bedouins like, tne ten thousand who ivearly destroyed the British squares at Tainal manage to subsist, the reason is plain. Each man carries a skin of water, and a small bag of graiu, procured by purchase or bartei from caravans. Their camels and goats move with them, supplying them with milk and meat and subsisting upon th« scanty herbage, and he, foilage of the thorny minosa, growing in secluded wadies. These people could live upon the increase of their Hooks alone, which they exchange readiy for other commodities, but being the exclusive carriers and guides for all the travel and commerce that cross their deserts, they realise yearly large amounts of money. As to water, th.«*y kuow every nook and hollow in the mountains, away from the trails, where a few barrels of water collect in some shaded ravine, and they can scatter, every man for himself, to fill the,u-wate.r-skins. On my first expedition, near the close of the three years' drought, I reached some wells on which I was depending, and found them entirely dry. It was several days to the next wells. But my B.:d«»uiu guides knew some natural reservoirs in the hills about six miles off. So they too v the water camels at nightfall, and came back before daylight with the water-skins filled. An invading army would find it hard to obtain guides, and even if they did they must keep together and not leave the line of march to look for water. Besides, the Bedouins, accustomed from infancy to regard water as most percious and rare, use it with wonderful economy. Neither man nor animals drink more than once, in forty-eight hours. As for washing they never indulge in such wasteful nonsense. When Bedouins came to my camp water was always offered them. And their answer would frequently be : • No, thanks ; I drank yesterday.' They know too well th« importance of keep- , ing up the habit of abstemiousness. ; No wonder they can subsist where invaders would quickly perish.