of hospitality, by which the host is pledged to his guest while he is a guest, and for a reasonable time after his departure.[19]

Durzee Bey, a native chieftain in Mesopotamia, having put a bit of roast meat into the mouth of Dr. Hamlin, as they sat together in his domicil, said: "By that act I have pledged you every drop of my blood, that while you are in my territory no evil shall come to you. For that space of time we are brothers."[20] "Where enmity subsists, the fiercer Arabs will not sit down at the same table with their adversary; sitting down together betokens reconciliation."[21]

A covenant of salt is, however, permanent and unalterable, as the truce or treaty is not. Yet this distinction, recognized by Orientals, does not seem to be observed by all writers on Oriental customs, even by those who are generally observant and experienced.

It is true that the sharing of salt is usually an accompaniment of bread-sharing; hence, a covenant of salt between two parties is generally, although not always, made by their partaking of bread and salt together. Moreover, because salt is a common ingredient in Oriental bread, the eating of bread with another in the East may include the sharing of salt with him; but in such a case it is the salt, and not the bread, which is the nexus of the perpetual covenant, in its distinction from the temporary compact of hospitality in the sharing of bread. The bread is the vehicle of the covenant-making salt. Indeed, they have it for a proverb among Arabs and Syrians, "My bread had no salt in it," as a mode of accounting for any act of treachery, or failure in fidelity toward one who was a partaker of the bread of hospitality.

In the famous Oriental story of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," the captain of the robber band who had visited Ali Baba in order to murder him was unwilling to partake of any food which had salt in it. This carefulness it was that excited the suspicion of Morgiana, the faithful slave girl, and led her to ask, "Who is he that eateth [only] meat wherein is no salt?" And when she recognized the robber captain under his disguise, she said to herself: "So ho! this is the cause why the villain eateth not of salt, for that he seeketh now an opportunity to slay my master, whose mortal enemy he is."[22] This man was ready enough to partake of bread and flesh as a guest, and then strike his host to the heart in violation of all the obligations of hospitality; as, indeed, has been done in many a case in the East in early and in recent times,[23] but he could not consent, robber and murderer as he was, to disregard a sacred "covenant of salt."

The story of the origin of the dynasty of the Saffaride Kaleefs, in the ninth century, is an illustration of the surpassing power of the covenant of salt. Laiss-el-Safar, or Laiss the coppersmith, was an obscure worker in brass and copper, in Khorassan, a province of Persia. His son Yakoob wrought for a time at his father's trade, and then became a robber chieftain.

Having on one occasion found his way by night through a subterranean passage into the treasury of the palace of the governor, Nassar Seyar, who was then in control of Seiestan, Yakoob gathered jewels and costly stuffs, and was proceeding to carry them off. Striking his bare foot, in the darkness, against a hard and sharp substance on the floor of the room, he thought it might be a jewel, and stooped to pick it up. Putting it to his tongue, to test it after the manner of lapidaries, he discovered that it was rock salt that he had tasted in the governor's palace. At once he threw down his bale of stolen goods, and left the palace by the way he had entered.

The signs of attempted robbery being found the next morning, the governor caused a proclamation to be made throughout the city, that, if the man who had entered the treasury would make himself known at the palace, he should be pardoned, and should be shown marks of special favor. Yakoob accordingly presented himself at the palace, and freely told his story. The governor felt that a man who would hold thus sacred the covenant of salt could be depended on, and Yakoob was given a position near his person.

Step by step Yakoob went forward to power and honors, until he was chief ruler of Khorassan, and founder of the Saffaride dynasty in the Persian khaleefate. He died A.D. 878, and was succeeded by his brother, Omar II.[24]

Baron du Tott, the Hungarian French traveler among the Turks and Tatars, tells of his experience in this line with one Moldovanji Pasha, who desired a closer intimacy than was practicable in the brief time the two were to be together. "I had already," says the Baron du Tott, "attended him halfway down the staircase [of my house], when stopping, and turning briskly to one of my domestics who followed me, 'Bring me directly,' said he, 'some bread and salt.' I was not less surprised at this fancy than at the haste which was made to obey him. What he requested was brought, when, taking a little salt between his fingers, and putting it with a mysterious air on a bit of bread, he ate it with a devout gravity, assuring me that I might now rely on him."[25]

Stephen Schultz, in his Travels through Europe, Asia, and Africa, gives this illustration of the binding force of the covenant of salt: "On the 13th of June [1754] the deacon, Joseph Diab, a custom-house clerk, was at table with us. Referring to the salt which stood on the table, he said that the Arabs make use of it as a token of friendship. While they are fond of it, they do not like to place it on the table. On one occasion, when he was with a caravan traveling to Babel [Bagdad], they came into a neighborhood where Arabs were encamped. In the caravan was a rich merchant. Seeing that one of the Arabs was making ready to come to the caravan, he buried his money in the ground, built a fire over it, and then sat down to eat with the others near the fire. When the Arabs arrived they were welcomed pleasantly, and invited to eat. They accepted the invitation and sat down at the table. But when their leader saw the salt on the table, he said to the merchant, 'My loss is your gain; for as I have eaten at a table on which is salt, I cannot, must not, harm you.' When that caravan started on its way, the Arab leader not only refrained from taking what he had intended to demand, but he escorted them without reward as far as the Euphrates, and gave them over into the care of the Pasha of Bagdad, as friends of his