Here he collected a band of friends as worthless as himself and gradually commenced a career of plundering and "frightfulness" much like that of the robber barons of mediaeval Germany.

Before the outbreak of the war he confined his attentions chiefly to the Arabs, whom he treated shamefully.

He raided cattle and crops and carried off girls and women in broad daylight.

On one occasion he stopped a wedding procession and carried off the young bride.

Then he seized the bridegroom, against whom he bore a grudge, and subjected the poor Bedouin to the bastinado until he consented to divorce his wife by pronouncing the words, "I divorce thee," three times in the presence of witnesses, according to Mohammedan custom.