It is,
however, almost too much to expect that so many ministers of peace
can assemble without finding some occasion for strife, and in that
year a tribe of wild Bedouins became the subject of discord. These
men, it seems, led an Arab life in some of the desert tracts
bordering on the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, but were not connected
with any of the great ruling tribes. Some whim or notion of policy
had induced them to embrace Christianity; but they were grossly
ignorant of the rudiments of their adopted faith, and having no
priest with them in their desert, they had as little knowledge of
religious ceremonies as of religion itself. They were not even
capable of conducting themselves in a place of worship with
ordinary decorum, but would interrupt the service with scandalous
cries and warlike shouts. Such is the account the Latins give of
them, but I have never heard the other side of the question. These
wild fellows, notwithstanding their entire ignorance of all
religion, are yet claimed by the Greeks, not only as proselytes who
have embraced Christianity generally, but as converts to the
particular doctrines and practice of their Church.
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