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We must now turn our attention to the inner life. among the Arabs, to their customs, to their religious observances; and though it is always difficult for a foreigner, and especially a foreigner in a Mohammedan country, really to see the life as lived by its people, it is believed that sufficient intimacy has been developed between the author and the Arabs to give a very accurate picture of what goes on among them.

The word “Arab” will be used, as it is not intended in this chapter to touch again on the subject of the pure Berber, mentioned before; neither is it considered necessary to mention the Europeanized natives who have adapted themselves to a great extent to the life of the big commercial towns of the north and who are all in favor of the Young Turk Movement and the modernizing of the excellent systems handed down to them by their ancestors.

These pages will be devoted to the average Arab household living either in the native quarters of the smaller communes mixtes, in the farms or away in the southern oases and under the tent in the Sahara.

The first thing which strikes one very forcibly is the extraordinary respect shown to the head of the family. It is usual for a great many people of one family to live in the same house, but it is only the head who counts. Moreover, among the nomads the caïd of the tribe estimates his people by heads of families. In the home the father reigns supreme;