A single robber, or a few associates, are branded with their genuine name; but the exploits of a numerous band assume the character of lawful and honorable war.

The temper of a people thus armed against mankind was doubly inflamed by the domestic license of rapine, murder, and revenge.

In the constitution of Europe, the right of peace and war is now confined to a small, and the actual exercise to a much smaller, list of respectable potentates; but each Arab, with impunity and renown, might point his javelin against the life of his countrymen.
The union of the nation consisted only in a vague resemblance of language and manners; and in each community, the jurisdiction of the magistrate was mute and impotent.

Of the time of ignorance which preceded Mahomet, seventeen hundred battles are recorded by tradition: hostility was imbittered with the rancor of civil faction; and the recital, in prose or verse, of an obsolete feud, was sufficient to rekindle the same passions among the descendants of the hostile tribes.
In private life every man, at least every family, was the judge and avenger of his own cause.

The nice sensibility of honor, which weighs the insult rather than the injury, sheds its deadly venom on the quarrels of the Arabs: the honor of their women, and of their _beards_, is most easily wounded; an indecent action, a contemptuous word, can be expiated only by the blood of the offender; and such is their patient inveteracy, that they expect whole months and years the opportunity of revenge.