Page:Eothen, or, Traces of travel brought home from the East by Kinglake, Alexander William.djvu/151

Rh Egypt, and were now going on to Jerusalem. They had been overtaken in the Desert by a gale of wind, which so drove the sand and raised up such mountains before them, that their journey had been terribly perplexed and obstructed, and their provisions (including water, the most precious of all) had been exhausted long before they reached the end of their toilsome march. They were sadly wayworn. The arrival of the caravan drew many and various groups into the court. There was the Moldavian pilgrim with his sable dress and cap of fur and heavy masses of bushy hair; the Turk, with his various and brilliant garments; the Arab, superbly stalking under his striped blanket, that hung like royalty upon his stately form; the jetty Ethiopian in his slavish frock; the sleek, smooth-faced scribe with his comely pelisse, and his silver ink-box stuck in like a dagger at his girdle. And mingled with these were the camels, some standing, some kneeling and being unladen, some twisting round their long necks, and gently stealing the straw from out of their own pack-saddles.

In a couple of days I was ready to start. The way of providing for the passage of the Desert is this: there is an agent in the town who keeps himself in communication with some of the desert Arabs that are hovering within a day’s journey of the place. A party of these upon being guaranteed against seizure or other ill-treatment at the hands of the Governor come into the town, bringing with them the number of camels which you require, and then they stipulate for a certain sum to take you to the place of your destination in a given time. The agreement which they thus enter into includes a safe conduct through their country as well as the hire of the camels. According to the contract made with me I was to reach Cairo within ten days from the commencement of the journey. I had four camels, one for my baggage, one for each of my servants, and one for myself. Four Arabs, the owners of the camels, came with me on foot. My stores were a small soldier’s tent, two bags of dried bread brought from the convent at Jerusalem, and a couple of bottles of wine from the same source, two goat-skins filled with water, tea, sugar, a cold tongue, and (of all things in the world) a jar of Irish butter which Mysseri had purchased from