Nabataeans

“ During the 7th century new movements were coming from Arabia, and tribes growing ever more restless made an invasion east of the Jordan through Edom, Moab and Ammon. Although they were repulsed, this awakening of a land which has so often fed Palestine and Syria, when viewed with the increasing weakness of Assyria, and subsequent vicissitudes in the history of the Edomites, Nabataeans and East Jordan tribes, forbids us to treat the invasion as an isolated raid. ”

“ Here the Nabataeans were at first nomadic and predatory, inviting attack by land from Antigonus, and by sea on the Gulf of Akaba, from the Ptolemies (Agatharchides, 88; Strabo, XVI, IV, 18) . Soon, however, they settled down to orderly commerce and prospered exceedingly, as the ruins of Petra testify. One may supposed that a part, at least, of their trouble with Syria and Egypt was due to their commercial aggressiveness rather than their predatory habits. They fought hard to maintain and control the caravan trade against the competition from Egyptian shipping. ”

“ The “small vessels” of § 19 from Muza to the Nabataean port are to be contrasted with the “large vessels” of § 10 that traded from Mosyllum to Egypt. The caravan trade could not be reached in the same way, and along the Red Sea the camel could always compete with the ship. This remained in Arabian hands for another half-century, when the Emperor Trajan reduced the Nabataeans to subjection to Rome.
19. Centurion.—Vincent assumes that this was a Roman officer, but the text does not indicate it. At this time the kingdom of the Nabataeans was independent, powerful and prosperous ”

“ They are Jewish private letters, and do not prove anything as to the use of Aramaic in Egypt at that time.
Nabataean inscriptions are very numerous. They are written in a peculiar, somewhat cursive character, derived from the square, and date from the 2nd century B.C. The earliest dated is of the year 40 B.C., the latest dated is of A.D. 95. The Nabataean kingdom proper had its centre at Petra (=Sela in 2 Kings xiv. 7) , which attained great importance as the emporium on the trade route between Arabia and the Persian Gulf on the one side and Syria and Egypt on the other. ”

“ The Masai that our Walunga people call 'Wahumba' are on good terms with us. We brought about peace between them and Mbogo. They come to our station to trade and we have cured several of their wounded men from bad lion bites. We will send messengers to the Humba Masai asking for a large war party of spearmen to await down below in the plains any attack by the Arabs. I think the mere knowledge the Masai are there will keep the Arabs from coming near Ulunga. ”

“ The delineation of Nabataean national character in Strabo and Diodorus is doubtless exaggerated but must be basically correct. The general picture is that of a sensible, acquisitive, orderly, democratic people absorbed in trade and agriculture. The society had few slaves and no paupers. ”

“ About the time of the captivity, B.C. 587-536, the Edomites gained possession of most of the country south of Judah, extending even to the confines of Egypt. But they lost their own land, Mount Seir, which became the possession of the Nabatheans. These were a race, perhaps allied to the Arabians, who laid aside their nomad habits, and founded a kingdom, whose people grew rich by the caravan trade. The Edomites, or Idumeans, south of Palestine, were conquered by the Maccabean princes and incorporated with the Jews, B.C. 130, and the Nabathean kingdom was annexed to the Roman empire, A.D. 105. ”

“ To their surprise the Masai made peace.
"We have watched the war with the Wakamba," they said, in effect, "and we have seen the Wakamba kill a great many of your men. But more of your men came in always, and there were no more Wakamba to come in and take the places of those who were killed. We are not afraid. If we should war with you, we would undoubtedly kill a great many of you, and you would undoubtedly kill a great many of us. But there can be no use in that. We want the ranges for our cattle; you want a road. ”

“ Levy after levy, en masse, started up at the call from every quarter of the peninsula, and the Bedouin tribes, as bees from their hive, streamed forth in swarms, animated by the prospect of conquest, plunder, and captive damsels, or, if slain in battle, by the still more coveted prize of the "martyr" in the material paradise of Mohammed. With a military ardor and new-born zeal in which carnal and spiritual aspirations were strangely blended, the Arabs rushed forth to the field, like the war-horse of Job, "that smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the shouting." ”

“ It has always been the custom of the Arabs and the Wangwana to make a present to the King when they pass through his country. Does not the white man mean to pay the King's dues? Why does the white man halt in the road? Why will he not enter the village of Lukomo, where there is food and shade—where we can discuss this thing quietly? Does the white man mean to fight? I know well he is stronger than we are. His men have guns, and the Wahha have but bows and arrows, and spears; but Uhha is large, and our villages are many. ”

“ But to his enemies he is relentless. He has none of the barbarity of the savage races, like the Zulus or the Masai. He is refined, even in his cruelty. Above all, he is a man of brains.
Because of their craftiness, their cunning and their courage, the Arab races have existed from the very beginnings of time. We read in the most ancient history that exists--in the history of the Pharaohs--of how the Egyptian towns in the valley of the Nile were walled against the incursions of the Arabs. ”

“ Certain spies of mine last night saw four white men riding on fine camels towards Egypt, and reported it to me as I led my army to the secret pass that Harmac showed me, which you Abati could never find. But I said, ‘Let them go; it is right that brave men who have been the mock of the Abati should be allowed their freedom.’ Yes, I said this, although one of them was my daughter’s husband, or near to it. ”

“ All western Asia was originally inhabited by a homogeneous, melanochroic race, with extreme hypsi-brachycephaly and with a ‘Hittite’ nose. About 4000 B. C. began a Semitic invasion from the southeast, probably from Arabia, by people looking like modern Bedawy. 2000 years later commenced a second invasion, this time from the northwest by xanthochrous and 380long-headed tribes like the modern Kurds, and perhaps connected with the historic Harri, Amorites, Tamahu and Galatians. ”

“ The entrance to the hut was darkened by a tall, swarthy Arab in long, flowing robes, followed by negro-bearers, who cast on the ground bales of cloth and guns. The Arab wore on his head a red fez, round which a coloured turban scarf was wound. He was a slave-trader from the coast, who had come from the East to M'tesa in Uganda to buy men and women and children to carry them away into slavery. ”

“ Now we are dwindling down; we are melting away as the snows on the hillside. United against the whites we shall both become stronger, and grow like the well-watered corn."
The Navahoes refused to give answer until they had consulted among themselves, and then one of their chiefs reported their decision as follows: "We have heard what our Ute brothers have said. If our white brothers want to kill us they can do so. They have had plenty of chances and we are yet alive. All of our people who have been slain have been those who have gone on the war-path against them in the past. ”

“ They have all the levity and instability of the Negro character; light- minded as the Abyssinians,--described by Gobat as constant in nothing but inconstancy,--soft, merry, and affectionate souls, they pass without any apparent transition into a state of fury, when they are capable of terrible atrocities. ”

“ They seem to affect the number seven, and have divided their immense multitude threefold by that number. They all agree, that, when the nation advanced to the Abyssinian frontiers, they were then in the centre of the continent. The ground beginning to rise before them, seven of their tribes or nations filed off to the east towards the Indian Ocean; and, after making settlements there, and multiplying exceedingly, they marched forward due south into Bali and Dawaro, which they first wasted by constant incursions, then conquered and settled there in the reign of David III. in 1537. ”

“ In Arabic the name Nabatean291 is used for Babylonians,—nay, all the people of Aramaic origin, settled in the earliest times between the Euphrates and Tigris are referred to by that name.292 It is supposed that the Nabateans, who are mentioned about the beginning of the Christian era as a race distinguished for their astronomical and general scientific knowledge, were the ancestors of the mediæval Nabateans, and the descendants of the ancient Babylonians and Chaldeans. ”

“ When Rebmann and Krapf made their journeys the Arabs had not penetrated the [Pg 419]
[Pg 420] country with their slave-hunting expeditions, and consequently the people had not been called to practise the art of war. In the last thirty years the Arabs have pushed far into the interior of Masai Land, just as they have pushed beyond Lake Tanganika and down the valley of the Congo. They have made war upon the natives, burning their villages, devastating their fields, killing those who opposed them and carrying their captives into slavery. ”

“ Napata, therefore, occupies an intermediate place in history between Thebes and Meroë, showing the gradual southward progress of Egyptian art and civilization. It is a curious fact that the old religion of Egypt should have been here met face to face, and overthrown, by Christianity, which, starting in the mountains of Abyssinia, followed the course of the Nile northward. In the sixth century of our era, Ethiopia and Nubia were converted to Christianity and remained thus until the fourteenth century, when they fell beneath the sword of Islam. ”

“ The costumes of the Arabs, on the other hand, recall all the stories of pirates and slave-traders which one associates with this romantic coast, for the men, ignoring the law which prohibits the carrying of arms, swagger insolently through the streets with dagger-filled sashes and trailing scimiters, their white jibbahs flapping about their sandalled feet and their snowy turbans cocked rakishly. ”

“ If you ask the reason, they tell you of many battles that have been lost by the troops having been attacked by their enemy when taking off the bridles to give their horses drink. No Arab ever mounts a stallion; on the contrary, in Nubia they never ride mares; the reason is plain: The Arabs are constantly at war with their neighbours, (for so robbery in that country is called) and always endeavour to take their enemies by surprise in the grey of the evening, or the dawn of day. ”

“ On the breaking out of this war, the three European settlements augmented their soldiery, and declared for the Nabob; of whom they at the same time requested permission to put their factories in a state of defence against an enemy, whose resentment they must incur by their attachment to his government. The Nabob ordered them in general terms to defend themselves; and they taking for granted, what was not positively forbidden, with great diligence raised walls with bastions round their factories: the Dutch about a mile to the south of Hughley ”

“ Harassed on the road between Zanzibar and Unyanyembe by minatory natives, who with bloody hands are ready to avenge the slightest affront, the Arabs have refrained from kidnapping between the Tanganika and the sea; but in Manyuema, where the natives are timid, irresolute, and divided into small weak tribes, they recover their audacity, and exercise their kidnapping propensities unchecked. ”

“ The habits of the Nebatæi, or Arabs of Nebaioth, are depicted as follows by Diodorus Siculus: “They live in the open air, and call a land their country, which is destitute of habitations, and has neither rivers nor copious fountains, such as could satisfy an army of invaders. ”

“ From that time forward a constant struggle went on between the two races, the Semitic race striving to push back the northern intruders and planting its own colonies in the very heart of the northern area, [169] while the northerners pressed ever more and more to the southward, and at one time even seemed likely to possess themselves of the heritage of the Babylonian Empire in Western Asia. Like Armenia, Northern Mesopotamia was occupied by a people of Caucasian and Asianic affinities, whose armies had crossed the Euphrates and won territory in Syria and Palestine. ”

“ What I advance derives the strongest confirmation from other considerations--from the frequency of the attacks made by the Turkomans upon the countries belonging to Sunnites, upon Afghanistan, Maymene, Khiva, and even Bokhara. Later experience, too, convinced me that the greater number of the slaves in Central Asia belong to the religious sect of the Sunnites. I once put the question to a robber, renowned for his piety, how he could make up his mind to sell his Sunnite brothers as slaves, when the Prophet's words were, 'Kulli Iszlam hurre (Every Musselman is free) '? ”

“ Some were dumbfounded when shown that in the eye of their Maker they are parties to the destruction of human life which accompanies this traffic both by sea and land. If they did not sell, the Arabs would not come to buy. Chuma and Wakatani render what is said very eloquently in Chiyau, most of the people being of their tribe, with only a sprinkling of slaves. Chimseia, Chimsaka, Mtarika, Mtendé, Makanjela, Mataka, and all the chiefs and people in our route to the Lake, are Waiyau, or Waiau. ”

“ The Wahama, however, being the largest of all the Dankalli tribes, and the Hy Soumaulee the least, the latter are not able to contend the matter with them, and are obliged to submit to the usurpation they have no means of preventing; whilst the Tajourah people dare not refuse to the Wahama the convenience of their town for mercantile purposes, or most assuredly their road to Shoa would be closed by this powerful tribe. ”