prince Achsam. They were now safe."

Schultz adds: "It is not customary among Arabs to place salt on a common table, but only when an Arab prince enters into an alliance with a pacha, which is called baret-millah, or the salt alliance. This is done as follows: The Arab prince, when he wishes to live within the jurisdiction of a pacha sends messengers to him to ask whether he may dwell in his territory as an ally. If the pacha consents, he sends messengers to the prince, informing him that they will meet on such a day. When the day arrives the pacha rides out to meet the prince, in the field which he has selected for his dwelling, and conducts him to his own quarters. Then the Arab prince asks the pacha how much he is to pay for permission to dwell in that field. The bargain is soon concluded, according to the extent of the Arab encampment.

"As soon as the bargain is concluded, a repast is prepared, and a salt-cellar, with some pieces of bread on a flat dish, is carried round the apartment by the pacha's servants. The dish is first presented to the pacha, who takes a piece of bread, dips it in the salt, and, holding it between two fingers toward the prince, calls out, 'Salaam!' that is Peace, 'I am the friend of your friend, and the enemy of your enemy.' The dish is now presented to the Arab prince, who likewise takes a piece of bread, dips it in the salt, and says to the pacha, 'Peace! I am the friend of your friend, and the enemy of your enemy!' Thereupon the dish with the bread is handed to the chief men of the Arab prince, and to the ministers of the pacha, who receive it in the same manner as their principals; with the exception that they simply say, on taking the bread, 'Salaam!' 'Peace'"[26]

Don Raphel speaking of the "conventions," or rather the "covenants," which are recognized by the Bed'ween as sacredly binding on them, says: "One kind of these conventions is made by their putting some grains of salt with pieces of bread into each other's mouths, saying, 'By the rite of bread and salt,' or, 'By this salt and bread, I will not betray thee.' No oath is added; for the more sacred an oath appears to be, the more easily does an Arab violate it. But a convention concluded in this manner derives its force merely from opinion, and this is indeed extraordinary.... If a stranger who meets with them in the desert, or comes to a camp, or before he departs from a city, can oppose this alliance to their rapacity, his baggage and his life are more safe, even in the midst of the desert, than during the first days of his journey with the securities of twenty hostages. The Arab with whom he has eaten bread and salt, and all the Arabs of his tribe, consider him as their countryman and brother. There is no kind of respect, no proof of regard, which they do not show him."[27]

Volney says of the Druzes, "When they have contracted with their guests the sacred engagement of bread and salt, no subsequent event can make them violate it."[28] This Volney illustrates by notable incidents.

Mrs. Finn, wife of the English consul at Jerusalem, who was long resident in the East, gives the following illustration of the importance of salt as well as bread to a binding covenant. After a feast in the Hebron district of Palestine, one of the persons who shared it was waylaid and murdered by hired assassins. "One of the men (Abdallah) concerned in the deed, not as an actor, but as spectator, had been the night before actually eating with the victim. On hearing what had happened, the poor fellah woman who had cooked their supper, and who was much attached to the murdered man, bewailed herself, beating her breast and crying, 'Wo is me! wo is me! I left out the salt by mistake when making the bread last night for their supper. Oh that I had put it in! then would not Abdallah have dared to let my lord be murdered in his presence; he would have been compelled to defend him after eating his bread and salt. Wo is me! wo is me!'"[29]

John Macgregor, while on the upper Jordan in his canoe Rob Roy, was taken prisoner by the Arabs. As he parleyed with the old shaykh in his tent, Macgregor opened a box of fine salt and proffered a pinch of it to his captor. The shaykh had never before seen salt so white and fine, and, therefore, thinking it was sugar, he tasted it. Instantly Macgregor put a portion also into his own mouth, and with a loud, laughing shout he clapped the old shaykh on his back.

The shaykh was dumbfounded. His followers wondered what had happened. "'What is it?' all asked from him. 'Is it sukker?' He answered demurely, 'La, meleh!' ("No, it's salt!") Even his home secretary laughed at his chief." "We had now eaten salt together," says Macgregor, "and in his own tent, and so he was bound by the strongest tie, and he knew it." The result was that Macgregor and his canoe were carried back in triumph to the river, and speeded on their way, while the people on the banks shouted "salaams" to their brother in the covenant of salt.[30]

Salt alone is a basis of an enduring covenant, but bread alone is not so. Yet bread and salt may be such a basis, because there is salt as well as bread there. So commonly does salt go with bread that it is the exception when they are not together. Our English Bible asks, at Job 6: 6, "Can that which hath no savor be eaten without salt?" But the Septuagint reads: "Can bread be eaten without salt?"[31]

In India it is much the same as in Arabia, Palestine, and Persia. In the Mahabharata, the great treasure-house of Hindoo wisdom, the covenant of bread and salt finds specific recognition. When Krishna urges the hero Karna to join with him in the war against the Kauravas, he says to him: "If you will accompany me and join the Pandavas, they will all respect you as their elder brother, and exalt you to the sovereignty." But Karna cannot be persuaded to this treacherous course, although he knows that to be true will cost him his life. "I have seen bad omens," he says, "and I know I shall be slain; but I have eaten the bread and salt of the Kauravas, and I am resolved to fight on their side."[32]

Again, when Yudhishthira asked permission of Bhishma and Drona to fight against the Kauravas, they granted his request, and at the same time said: "We fight on the side of the Kauravas because for many years we have eaten their bread and salt, or otherwise we would have fought for you."