"There would be nothing eatable," says Plutarch, "without salt, which, mixed with flour, seasons bread also. Hence it was that Neptune and Ceres [or Poseidon and Demeter as the Greeks called them] had both the same temple."[17] And from the days of Plutarch until now, as has been already mentioned, it has been customary to speak of the "covenant of salt" as synonymous with the "covenant of bread and salt;" or as identical with the covenant of food-sharing in the rite of hospitality. But the covenant of salt among primitive peoples has, and ever has had, a sacredness and depth of meaning far beyond what is involved in the ordinary sharing of food.

Even the sharing of water between two persons, or the giving and receiving of a drink of water, is a compact of peace for the time being, as a truce between enemies.[18] The sharing of bread, or of flesh, means yet more than the sharing of water. It brings those who join in it into the league or treaty of hospitality, by which the host is pledged to his guest while he is a guest, and for a reasonable time after his departure.[19]

Durzee Bey, a native chieftain in Mesopotamia, having put a bit of roast meat into the mouth of Dr. Hamlin, as they sat together in his domicil, said: "By that act I have pledged you every drop of my blood, that while you are in my territory no evil shall come to you. For that space of time we are brothers."[20] "Where enmity subsists, the fiercer Arabs will not sit down at the same table with their adversary; sitting down together betokens reconciliation."[21]

A covenant of salt is, however, permanent and unalterable, as the truce or treaty is not. Yet this distinction, recognized by Orientals, does not seem to be observed by all writers on Oriental customs, even by those who are generally observant and experienced.

It is true that the sharing of salt is usually an accompaniment of bread-sharing; hence, a covenant of salt between two parties is generally, although not always, made by their partaking of bread and salt together. Moreover, because salt is a common ingredient in Oriental bread, the eating of bread with another in the East may include the sharing of salt with him; but in such a case it is the salt, and not the bread, which is the nexus of the perpetual covenant, in its distinction from the temporary compact of hospitality in the sharing of bread. The bread is the vehicle of the covenant-making salt. Indeed, they have it for a proverb among Arabs and Syrians, "My bread had no salt in it," as a mode of accounting for any act of treachery, or failure in fidelity toward one who was a partaker of the bread of hospitality.

In the famous Oriental story of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," the captain of the robber band who had visited Ali Baba in order to murder him was unwilling to partake of any food which had salt in it. This carefulness it was that excited the suspicion of Morgiana, the faithful slave girl, and led her to ask, "Who is he that eateth [only] meat wherein is no salt?" And when she recognized the robber captain under his disguise, she said to herself: "So ho! this is the cause why the villain eateth not of salt, for that he seeketh now an opportunity to slay my master, whose mortal enemy he is."[22] This man was ready enough to partake of bread and flesh as a guest, and then strike his host to the heart in violation of all the obligations of hospitality; as, indeed, has been done in many a case in the East in early and in recent times,[23] but he could not consent, robber and murderer as he was, to disregard a sacred "covenant of salt."

The story of the origin of the dynasty of the Saffaride Kaleefs, in the ninth century, is an illustration of the surpassing power of the covenant of salt. Laiss-el-Safar, or Laiss the coppersmith, was an obscure worker in brass and copper, in Khorassan, a province of Persia. His son Yakoob wrought for a time at his father's trade, and then became a robber chieftain.

Having on one occasion found his way by night through a subterranean passage into the treasury of the palace of the governor, Nassar Seyar, who was then in control of Seiestan, Yakoob gathered jewels and costly stuffs, and was proceeding to carry them off. Striking his bare foot, in the darkness, against a hard and sharp substance on the floor of the room, he thought it might be a jewel, and stooped to pick it up. Putting it to his tongue, to test it after the manner of lapidaries, he discovered that it was rock salt that he had tasted in the governor's palace. At once he threw down his bale of stolen goods, and left the palace by the way he had entered.

The signs of attempted robbery being found the next morning, the governor caused a proclamation to be made throughout the city, that, if the man who had entered the treasury would make himself known at the palace, he should be pardoned, and should be shown marks of special favor. Yakoob accordingly presented himself at the palace, and freely told his story. The governor felt that a man who would hold thus sacred the covenant of salt could be depended on, and Yakoob was given a position near his person.

Step by step Yakoob went forward to power and honors, until he was chief ruler of Khorassan, and founder of the Saffaride dynasty in the Persian khaleefate. He died A.D. 878, and was succeeded by his brother, Omar II.[24]

Baron du Tott, the Hungarian French traveler among the Turks and Tatars, tells of his experience in this line with one Moldovanji Pasha, who desired a closer intimacy than was practicable in the brief time the two were to be together. "I had already," says the Baron du Tott, "attended him halfway down the staircase [of my house], when stopping, and turning briskly to one of my domestics who followed me, 'Bring me directly,' said he, 'some bread and salt.' I was not less surprised at this fancy than at the haste which was made to obey him. What he requested was brought, when, taking a little salt between his fingers, and putting it with a mysterious air on a bit of bread, he ate it with a devout gravity, assuring me that I might now rely on him."[25]

Stephen Schultz, in his Travels through Europe, Asia, and Africa, gives this illustration of the binding force of the covenant of salt: "On the 13th of June [1754] the deacon, Joseph Diab, a custom-house clerk, was at table with us. Referring to the salt which stood on the table, he said that the Arabs make use of it as a token of friendship. While they are fond of it, they do not like to place it on the table. On one occasion, when he was with a caravan traveling to Babel [Bagdad], they came into a neighborhood where Arabs were encamped. In the caravan was a rich merchant. Seeing that one of the Arabs was making ready to come to the caravan, he buried his money in the ground, built a fire over it, and then sat down to eat with the others near the fire. When the Arabs arrived they were welcomed pleasantly, and invited to eat. They accepted the invitation and sat down at the table. But when their leader saw the salt on the table, he said to the merchant, 'My loss is your gain; for as I have eaten at a table on which is salt, I cannot, must not, harm you.' When that caravan started on its way, the Arab leader not only refrained from taking what he had intended to demand, but he escorted them without reward as far as the Euphrates, and gave them over into the care of the Pasha of Bagdad, as friends of his prince Achsam. They were now safe."

Schultz adds: "It is not customary among Arabs to place salt on a common table, but only when an Arab prince enters into an alliance with a pacha, which is called baret-millah, or the salt alliance. This is done as follows: The Arab prince, when he wishes to live within the jurisdiction of a pacha sends messengers to him to ask whether he may dwell in his territory as an ally. If the pacha consents, he sends messengers to the prince, informing him that they will meet on such a day. When the day arrives the pacha rides out to meet the prince, in the field which he has selected for his dwelling, and conducts him to his own quarters. Then the Arab prince asks the pacha how much he is to pay for permission to dwell in that field. The bargain is soon concluded, according to the extent of the Arab encampment.

"As soon as the bargain is concluded, a repast is prepared, and a salt-cellar, with some pieces of bread on a flat dish, is carried round the apartment by the pacha's servants. The dish is first presented to the pacha, who takes a piece of bread, dips it in the salt, and, holding it between two fingers toward the prince, calls out, 'Salaam!' that is Peace, 'I am the friend of your friend, and the enemy of your enemy.' The dish is now presented to the Arab prince, who likewise takes a piece of bread, dips it in the salt, and says to the pacha, 'Peace! I am the friend of your friend, and the enemy of your enemy!' Thereupon the dish with the bread is handed to the chief men of the Arab prince, and to the ministers of the pacha, who receive it in the same manner as their principals; with the exception that they simply say, on taking the bread, 'Salaam!' 'Peace'"[26]

Don Raphel speaking of the "conventions," or rather the "covenants," which are recognized by the Bed'ween as sacredly binding on them, says: "One kind of these conventions is made by their putting some grains of salt with pieces of bread into each other's mouths, saying, 'By the rite of bread and salt,' or, 'By this salt and bread, I will not betray thee.' No oath is added; for the more sacred an oath appears to be, the more easily does an Arab violate it. But a convention concluded in this manner derives its force merely from opinion, and this is indeed extraordinary.... If a stranger who meets with them in the desert, or comes to a camp, or before he departs from a city, can oppose this alliance to their rapacity, his baggage and his life are more safe, even in the midst of the desert, than during the first days of his journey with the securities of twenty hostages. The Arab with whom he has eaten bread and salt, and all the Arabs of his tribe, consider him as their countryman and brother. There is no kind of respect, no proof of regard, which they do not show him."[27]

Volney says of the Druzes, "When they have contracted with their guests the sacred engagement of bread and salt, no subsequent event can make them violate it."[28] This Volney illustrates by notable incidents.

Mrs. Finn, wife of the English consul at Jerusalem, who was long resident in the East, gives the following illustration of the importance of salt as well as bread to a binding covenant. After a feast in the Hebron district of Palestine, one of the persons who shared it was waylaid and murdered by hired assassins. "One of the men (Abdallah) concerned in the deed, not as an actor, but as spectator, had been the night before actually eating with the victim. On hearing what had happened, the poor fellah woman who had cooked their supper, and who was much attached to the murdered man, bewailed herself, beating her breast and crying, 'Wo is me! wo is me! I left out the salt by mistake when making the bread last night for their supper. Oh that I had put it in! then would not Abdallah have dared to let my lord be murdered in his presence; he would have been compelled to defend him after eating his bread and salt. Wo is me! wo is me!'"[29]

John Macgregor, while on the upper Jordan in his canoe Rob Roy, was taken prisoner by the Arabs. As he parleyed with the old shaykh in his tent, Macgregor opened a box of fine salt and proffered a pinch of it to his captor. The shaykh had never before seen salt so white and fine, and, therefore, thinking it was sugar, he tasted it. Instantly Macgregor put a portion also into his own mouth, and with a loud, laughing shout he clapped the old shaykh on his back.

The shaykh was dumbfounded. His followers wondered what had happened. "'What is it?' all asked from him. 'Is it sukker?' He answered demurely, 'La, meleh!' ("No, it's salt!") Even his home secretary laughed at his chief." "We had now eaten salt together," says Macgregor, "and in his own tent, and so he was bound by the strongest tie, and he knew it." The result was that Macgregor and his canoe were carried back in triumph to the river, and speeded on their way, while the people on the banks shouted "salaams" to their brother in the covenant of salt.[30]

Salt alone is a basis of an enduring covenant, but bread alone is not so. Yet bread and salt may be such a basis, because there is salt as well as bread there. So commonly does salt go with bread that it is the exception when they are not together. Our English Bible asks, at Job 6: 6, "Can that which hath no savor be eaten without salt?" But the Septuagint reads: "Can bread be eaten without salt?"[31]

In India it is much the same as in Arabia, Palestine, and Persia. In the Mahabharata, the great treasure-house of Hindoo wisdom, the covenant of bread and salt finds specific recognition. When Krishna urges the hero Karna to join with him in the war against the Kauravas, he says to him: "If you will accompany me and join the Pandavas, they will all respect you as their elder brother, and exalt you to the sovereignty." But Karna cannot be persuaded to this treacherous course, although he knows that to be true will cost him his life. "I have seen bad omens," he says, "and I know I shall be slain; but I have eaten the bread and salt of the Kauravas, and I am resolved to fight on their side."[32]

Again, when Yudhishthira asked permission of Bhishma and Drona to fight against the Kauravas, they granted his request, and at the same time said: "We fight on the side of the Kauravas because for many years we have eaten their bread and salt, or otherwise we would have fought for you."[33]

In Madagascar also the covenant of salt is known, as in other parts of the East.[34] And thus on every continent and on the islands of the sea.

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