ABSTRACT
LUDOVICO DI VARTHEM A. 17 Zambei,1 and he is lord of the country, that is to say, o f the Arabians; which Zambei has three brothers and four male children, and he has 40,000 horses, and for his court he has 10,000 mares. And he has here 300,000 camels, for his pasture-ground extends two days’ journey. And this lord Zambei, when he thinks proper, wages war with the Sultan of Cairo, and the Lord of Damascus and of Jerusalem, and sometimes, in harvest time, when they think that he is a hundred miles distant, he plans some morning a great in cursion to the granaries of the said city, and finds the grain and the barley nicely packed up in sacks, and carries it off. Sometimes he runs a whole day and night with his said mares without stopping, and when they have arrived at the end of their journey they give them camels’ milk to drink, because it is very refreshing. Truly it appears to me that they do not run but that they fly like falcons; for I have been with them, and you must know that they ride, for the most part, without saddles, and in their shirts, excepting some o f their principal men. Their arms consist of a lance o f Indian cane ten or twelve cubits in length with a piece of iron at the end, and when they go on any expedition they keep as close together as starlings. The said Arabians are very small men, and are of a dark tawny colour, and they have a feminine voice, and long, stiff, and black hair. And truly these Arabs are in such vast numbers that they cannot be counted, and they are constantly fighting amongst them selves. They inhabit the mountain and come down at the time when the caravan passes through to go to Mecca, in order to lie in wait at the passes for the purpose of robbing the said caravan. They carry their wives, children, and ali
1 Burckhardt enables me to identify this with Zaabi or Ez-Zaabi, the patronymic o f the principal Arab family in this district. He says: “ At three hours from Mezarib is the village o f Ramtha,...the sheikh o f which is generally a santon, that dignity being in the family o f Ez-Zaabi, who possess there a mosque o f the same name.” — Ibid. Appen dix iii.
