Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/385

 half-silk, which each man had fastened about his head with a string, just as you see it on the Egyptian statues.

Hunting in the Tshull is highly successful. There are countless gazelles, pheasants and partridges hiding in the tall grass. On the third day we were just on the point of following some bustards, which clumsily rise on their wings and after some time descend again to the ground, when a general alarm arose in the caravan. "The Arabs are coming!" was shouted everywhere. A throng had been noticed in the distance approaching very rapidly. The head of our column stopped, but since our whole caravan was stretched out to the length of approximately four miles, there was little hope of protecting it with a guard of some sixty armed men. The horsemen galloped ahead to an artificial mount, where the Arabs were pointed out to me. There were indeed numerous black spots moving rapidly through the plain, but since I had a small telescope with me I could quickly convince my companions that what we saw before us was nothing but a huge herd of wild boars bearing down upon us. Soon the beasts could be recognized with the naked eye.

Tonight the Kjerwan-Bashi told me a characteristic story of an Arab which I had heard before in Orfa.

A Turkish general of cavalry, Dano-Pasha at Mardin, had been negotiating for some time with an Arab tribe concerning the purchase of a full-blooded mare of the Meneghi breed. Finally a price of sixty bags or almost fifteen hundred dollars was agreed upon. At the appointed hour the sheikh of the tribe arrives with his mare in the courtyard of the pasha. The latter is still trying to bargain, when the sheikh proudly replies that he will not take one para less. The Turk sulkily throws him the money saying that thirty thousand piasters are an unheard of price for a horse. The Arab looks at him in silence, and ties the money very complacently in his cloak. Then he descends to the courtyard to take leave of his mare. He mutters some Arabic words in her ear, strokes her eyes and forehead, examines her