ARABS

general namo given to the people who at the present day inhabit, besides Arabia itself, parts of N. Africa and Me so pot am i a, and extensive dists. on the coasts of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and who conquered Spain and other parts of S. Europe in Middle Ages. 'The purest type is found in the neighborhood of Hadramut and Yemen, and amongst the Bedouin nomads of the Central Arab. desert. The Arabs of the coasts are often of very mixed descent. The pure-blooded Arabs are tall, lean, long-limbed, and muscular, and with handsome features and beautiful teeth. They live simply and abstemiously, and are scrupulously clean in their habits. Their food consists of roughly ground wheat cakes, rice, locusts, mutton and camel’s flesh, tea, coffee, butter, dates, etc. In character the Arabs are often proud, revengeful, and treacherous, but are capable of pity. and gratitude, and are proverbially ospitable to strangers. Le to their credit is the Arab a ociation with the African slave trade, their victims, over a very long period, having been obtained from the Sudan, Soma lil and, and other places. The European powers have made strenuous efforts to suppre this iniquitous traffic, but it was not until the end of the 19th cent. that the trade was arrested to any extent. In 1873 the Sultan of Zanzibar signed a treaty whereby he undertook to suppre the traffic.