* * * * *

Hospitality has ever been the characteristic virtue of the Arabs, and a mean, stingy disposition is rarely to be found among them.  A droll story of an Arab of the latter description has been rendered into verse by the Persian poet Liwa’i, the substance of which is as follows:  An Arab merchant who had been trading between Mecca and Damascus, at length turned his face homeward, and had reached within one stage of his house when he sat down to rest and to refresh himself with the contents of his wallet.  While he was eating, a Bedouin, weary and hungry, came up, and, hoping to be invited to share his repast, saluted him, “Peace be with thee!” which the merchant returned, and asked the nomad who he was and whence he came.  “I have come from thy house,” was the answer.  “Then,” said the merchant, “how fares my son Ahmed, absence from whom has grieved me sore?” “Thy son grows apace in health and innocence.”  “Good! and how is his mother?” “She, too, is free from the shadow of sorrow.”  “And how is my beauteous camel, so strong to bear his load?” “Thy camel is sleek and fat.”  “My house-dog, too, that guards my gate, pray how is he?” “He is on the mat before thy door, by day, by night, on constant guard.”  The merchant, having thus his doubts and fears removed, resumed his meal with freshened appetite, but gave nought to the poor nomad, and, having finished, closed his wallet.  The Bedouin, seeing his stinginess, writhed with the pangs of hunger.  Presently a gazelle passed rapidly by them, at which he sighed heavily, and the merchant inquiring the cause of his sorrow, he said:  “The cause is this—­had not thy dog died he would not have allowed that gazelle to escape!” “My dog!” exclaimed the merchant.  “Is my doggie, then, dead?” “He died from gorging himself with thy camel’s blood.”  “Who hath cast this dust on me?” cried the merchant.  “What of my camel?” “Thy camel was slaughtered to furnish the funeral feast of thy wife.”  “Is my wife, too, dead?” “Her grief for Ahmed’s death was such that she dashed her head against a rock.”  “But, Ahmed,” asked the father—­“how came he to die?” “The house fell in and crushed him.”  The merchant heard this tale with full belief, rent his robe, cast sand upon his head, then started swiftly homeward to bewail his wife and son, leaving behind his well-filled wallet, a prey to the starving desert-wanderer.[34]

   [34] A variant of this story is found in Le Grand’s Fabliaux
        et Contes, ed. 1781, tome iv, p. 119, and it was
        probably brought from the East during the Crusades: 
        Maimon was a valet to a count.  His master, returning
        home from a tourney, met him on the way, and asked him
        where he was going.  He replied, with great coolness,
        that he was going to seek a lodging somewhere.  “A
        lodging!” said the count.  “What then has happened at
        home?” “Nothing, my lord.  Only your dog, whom you