365
The governments of Mesopotamia andSyria are too weak to check the depreda-tions of the Bedouins , and all the frontiervillages towards the Desert are left to theirfate. Mohammed Aly, in Egypt , has con-trived to rescue his villages from the handsof the Bedouins , on both banks of the Nile.The Libyan or Maggrebyn Arabs had be-come particularly troublesome, and fromSiout down to Alexandria they had exactedtribute from all the villages, besides attack-ing and robbing almost every unprotectedindividual whom they met on the road. ThePasha having laid hold of many young malechildren belonging to these tribes, detainedthem as hostages in his castle at Cairo ; andthe amount of the ransom paid for their libe-ration in horses, sheep, and camels, reducedthe strength of the most powerful amongthose tribes. They were obliged to renouncethe custom of levying tribute on the pea-sants ; but continued still so formidable, thatthe Pasha agreed to pay them part of thattribute out of his own treasury, while hereceives the whole of what was formerlygiven to the Bedouins . About thirty vil-