Word: bedouin
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...always careful to observe the strict rules of desert etiquette. "When you come into Bedouin territory," he explains, "you've got to find their camp and check in. You ask for the sheik and tell him who you are and what you're up to. He's almost always friendly, usually too friendly. He has his people prepare a tremendous feast, just as Abraham killed a calf for his guests. You sit around the fire, stuffed with food and talking endlessly. Then you are taken to the guest tent and covered against the cold with the tribe...
Even to hardened Bedouin shepherds, the waterless wastes of Saudi Arabia's Rub' al Khali (literally, "empty quarter") seemed so desolate that "not even Allah had been there." But under these simmering sands American geologists discovered a sea of oil, and the company that tapped it-the Arabian American Oil Co.-has become one of the world's two largest single oil producers. (The other: Kuwait Oil Co., jointly owned by Gulf and British Petroleum...
King Hussein was not dependent on relatives alone. He drew support from businessmen, farmers and the middle class -people with something to lose. Bedouin chiefs led 4,000 tribesmen into the gardens of Basman Palace to shout "Long live Hussein, our King!" When the Bed ouins overenthusiastically roared anti-Nasser slogans, Hussein stopped them with an angry gesture, offering conciliation to Nasser with the words "Jordan is the heart of the Arab homeland and seeks Arab unity...
...flush toilet and a pump to supply it with water; sewage disposal was simply a pipe jutting out from the palace wall. Nearly every day, the sheik sat cross-legged in his throne room holding a majlis, at which he listened to complaints of citizens, while Bedouin chiefs grouped around him, some holding on their wrists the hooded falcons that were Abu Dhabi's only status symbol...
...finally caught the French fleet at Abukir Bay and all but destroyed it in the Battle of the Nile, Napoleon's lines of supply and communication with Europe were virtually cut off. His army was steadily reduced by sieges of sickness (most notably, ophthalmia and bubonic plague), by Bedouin raids, and by the almost incessant warfare the French were forced to wage to keep their sprawling colony subdued. Some 27,000 Frenchmen died in Egypt, and after a time even victories became too costly. Napoleon pushed into Syria with 13,000 men, was stalemated by the Turks at Acre...