They were tall, muscular, and very dark-skinned Bedouins, with inky black beards.

They had firm lips, unquailing eyes, and a kingly stateliness of bearing.
They wore the parti-colored half bonnet, half hood, with fringed ends falling upon their shoulders, and the full, flowing robe barred with broad black stripes--the dress one sees in all pictures of the swarthy sons of the desert.

These chaps would sell their younger brothers if they had a chance, I think.

They have the manners, the customs, the dress, the occupation and the loose principles of the ancient stock.
[They attacked our camp last night, and I bear them no good will.] They had with them the pigmy jackasses one sees all over Syria and remembers in all pictures of the "Flight into Egypt," where Mary and the Young Child are riding and Joseph is walking alongside, towering high above the little donkey's shoulders.
But really, here the man rides and carries the child, as a general thing, and the woman walks.

The customs have not changed since Joseph's time.
We would not have in our houses a picture representing Joseph riding and Mary walking; we would see profanation in it, but a Syrian Christian would not.