The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1889-02-19
THE ARAB IN JOURNALISM.

THE ARAB IN JOURNALISM.
The Arab, as described by those
who have known him amidst his ma
tive sands, is pious, picturesque
and peculiar parsonage, but not al
together pleasing one. His piety,
which is as unlimited in quantity as
it is peculiar in quality, is of the same
fanatical variety which characterized
his forefathers, when they first burst
forth from their desert Businesses,
with the amiable purpose of beating
the religion of Mohammed into the
nations with the edge of the sword.
1t shows itself at the present day
chiefly by mighty multiplication OF
outward observances of a peculiarly
monotonous and mechanical charac-
ter, and a delightsome desire to per
forate the persons and carve the cor
porosities of those who do not hap
pen to believe as. he does. His pic
turesqueness too is rather ragged,
disagreeably diversified with dirt
and familiar with feas. And then
his hospitality, which is his strong
point in the estimation Of his adj
mirers; this also is peculiar He
will receive you in his tent with an
effusiveness of manner and speech
which indicates that he considers
himself the especial favorite of Hea
ven in being allowed to entertain so
honored a guest. He will feed you
with the best his place affords, albeit
the grub is not particularly clean,
and send you forth with his blessing
And then if some of his tribe happen
to meet you on the road the next
day, which is curiously apt to happen,
they will strip you as bare as bone.
In fact they will clean you out and
punch your head with an inherited
aptitude which would delight the
soul of modern authority on her
edity.
In piety, picturesqueness, hospi-
taiity, fanaticism and feas, the Arab
may possibly have some rivals among
the tribes and peoples of the earth,
bat as a hereditary highwayman he
occupies proud prominence, pin
nacle, so to speak. In this ancient
department of human effort he has
become, through the transmitted ex-
periences of unnumbered genera
tions, a thoroughbred. Metapher1cally
speaking, he takes the cake, literally
he takes anything he can lay his
hands on. "a robber," exclaimed an
Arab chief to friend of ours once,
''of course 1 am a robber, as all my
people before me have been. l would
have you to know that my grand
father was the greatest robber in all
the Hauran." As he announced this
peculiar title to distinction, he
swelled and strutted as though his
family had come over the food in a
private ark of their own. We have
read somewhere that the road be-
tween Jerusalem and Jericho has
been for centuries favorite stamp
ing ground of the Bedouin brother,
and that those who have enjoyed
the honor of transacting business
with him on that ancient highway
have sometimes been found by
other travellers, Samaritans for in
stance, in very dilapidated condi-
ton.
But if the Arab at home is not en-
tirely estimable, when he goes abroad
and takes on a thin veneer of Euro
pean culture he is apt to become a
bad lot altogether Like most mem
bers of the simpler races who adopt
an alien civilization, he generally
manages to get rid of the ruder viz
tues which belonged to his original
state, and retain only the more
rascally qualities, adding thereto the
vices of his new environment. This
is never SO conspicuous as when he