Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/204

190 who were in deadly hostility, between whom there was a blood-feud, which found vent in constant fighting. Of course it would be the height of imprudence to venture between such combatants. In that case we should be obliged to return to Akaba, and then march four days across the desert to Nukhl to strike another "trail." All this would involve a loss, in going to Petra and returning to Akaba, and diverging to the direct route, of a couple of weeks time (it might involve much more if we were forcibly detained), which we had not to spare, as we wished to be in Jerusalem at the Holy Week. These considerations finally decided us, very reluctantly, to give up Petra.

After all this, was it not provoking that our friends of the other American party, who left Sinai the same morning, did go to Petra, and remain there three days, and did not have to return to Akaba, but went on direct to Hebron, and arrived in Jerusalem only a week or ten days after us? However, when they told us the story of their experience, our envy was subdued. They got through by the skin of their teeth, and this owing to the fact that they had a dragoman who was a Moslem from Alexandria (ours was a Syrian from Beirut), who had a personal acquaintance with the sheikh at Petra, to whom he had once rendered some service (I believe he had saved his life), and by whose favor he secured protection. Before starting, he told me privately that he thought it a rash venture, but hoped he could get his party through. He did get them through, but at the price of such extortions and annoyances that we were not at all sorry not to have followed their example. Had it not been for the dragoman's personal acquaintance with the sheikh, who stood guard with him over the tents, they would have been utterly "cleaned out." All the time they were there, they were surrounded, not only from morning to evening, but