[Illustration 39: A TRAVELLING ENCAMPMENT OF THE 'AG̣ĒL]
Knowing the independence of Arab women and the freedom with which marriages are contracted between different tribes of equal birth, I saw many romantic possibilities of mingled love and hatred between the Montagues and the Capulets. "Lo, on a sudden I loved her," says Antara, "though I had slain her kin." G̣ablān replied that these difficult situations did indeed occur, and ended sometimes in a tragedy, but if the lovers would be content to wait, some compromise could be arrived at, or they might be able to marry during one of the brief but oft-recurring intervals of truce. The real danger begins when blood feud is started within the tribe itself and a man having murdered one of his own people is cast out a homeless, kinless exile to shelter with strangers or with foes. Such was Imr ul Ḳais, the lonely outlaw, crying to the night: "Oh long night, wilt thou not bring the dawn? yet the day is no better than thou."
A few miles further north the Ḥassaniyyeh encampments had not yet heard of yesterday's misfortune, and we had the pleasure of spreading the ill-news. G̣ablān rode up to every group we passed and delivered his mind of its burden; the men in buckram multiplied as we went, and perhaps I had been wrong in accepting the four hundred of the original statement, for they had had plenty of time to breed during the twenty-four hours that had elapsed between their departure and our arrival. All the tents were occupied with preparations not for war but for feasting. On the morrow fell the great festival of the Mohammedan year, the Feast of Sacrifice, when the pilgrims in Mecca slaughter their offerings and True Believers at home follow their example. By every tent there was a huge pile of thorns wherewith to roast the camel or sheep next day, and the shirts of the tribe were spread out to dry in the sun after a washing which, I have reason to believe, takes place but once a year. Towards sunset we reached a big encampment of the Beni Ḥassan, where G̣ablān decided to spend the night. There was water in a muddy pool near at hand and a good site for our tents above the hollow in which the Arabs lay. None of the great sheikhs were camped there and, mindful of Namrūd's warnings, I refused all invitations and spent the evening at home, watching the sunset and the kindling of the cooking fires and the blue smoke that floated away into the twilight. The sacrificial camel, in gorgeous trappings, grazed among my mules, and after dark the festival was heralded by a prolonged letting off of rifles. G̣ablān sat silent by the camp fire, his thoughts busy with the merrymakings that were on foot at home. It went sorely against the grain that he should be absent on such a day. "How many horsemen," said he, "will alight to-morrow at my father's tent! and I shall not be there to welcome them or to wish a good feast day to my little son!"