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Rh had been detected by his companions with his journal in his hand it would have destroyed all his hopes of success. It was only while travelling through the deserts that he could take notes with tolerable ease. Here, mounted on his ass or dromedary, he pushed on ahead of the caravan, and then alighted under some tree or rock, where he remained unobserved, apparently occupied only in smoking his pipe until the caravan came up. On all these occasions, however, Burckhardt was provided with firmans or letters sufficient to inspire respect if any person in authority had sought to molest him. These he never exhibited except in the last resort, as they necessarily betrayed his disguise in some degree. On one occasion, when at Sonakim, in Arabia, he was ordered to be arrested, and to have his hands tied, and be thrust into a prison. Concealment was now useless, and Burckhardt drew his firmans from a secret pocket in his cloak, written on long scrolls in Turkish and Arabic. The production of these imposing documents wrought an immediate change in the tone of the Arab functionary. After kissing both the scrolls and placing them to his forehead, he protested that it was the good of the public alone that had led him to treat him as he had done. He then inquired the cause of the traveller's appearance; "for by this time," says Burckhardt, "my dress, which had not been very splendid when I set out on my journey, was literally in rags."

In his Nubian wanderings, Burckhardt succeeded in penetrating to the banks of the Astobaros, and thence crossed the desert to Sanakin, on the shore of the Red Sea. This, and a former journey along the Nile