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| ARAB SPEARMAN OF THE WILD EAST SHOW - The
visit of the Bedouins to Chicago in 1893
was attended with many sorrows, and if the Caucasian fares ill on the
desert, the Arabs might well complain that they had no better fortune
in the Caucasian country. It was not until the latter days of the
Fair that the Bedouins settled with their
Wild East safely in that paradise of ethnology, the Midway Plaisance;
and though they often figured in the newspapers, it was because of
attachments by the Sheriff rather than any popular favor that they
evoked. The counter-attraction of the Cowboys, Mexicans, Cossacks,
Bedouins, and military under Buffalo Bill, guided by excellent
managerial ability, left the Bedouins in the shadows of obscurity and
indifference. Nobody, however, who paid twenty-five cents to see
these Arabs failed to secure valuable instruction. The patron
learned that the Bedouin is at least a peaceable shepherd, of perhaps
better temper than the Sicilians or Calabrians now so familiar in
America; and if the reader study the figures of horses and riders in the engraving, he will
espy the absence of savagery in their attitude. The Bedouin always
bears the lance, as it is here seen, and his manner of holding or
trailing it usually announces his tribe. He can hurl his lance with
good aim, and it is his real weapon, though he usually carries both a
bad horse-pistol and a rusty sword. These Bedouins called themselves
Syrians. |
