Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/226

212 The camp-fire is the delight of the Bedaween. No sooner are our tents pitched, and our wants attended to, and the camels fed, than the men scatter about, pulling up little shrubs and brushwood that grow on the desert, which make a quick fire. These they pile on until the ground is thoroughly heated, and they have a glowing bed of coals. Meanwhile one of the Arabs pours out of a sack perhaps a peck of meal upon a piece of coarse cloth, much the worse for wear, and adding a little water and salt, kneads it into a dough, which, when of the proper consistency, is flattened out like a huge pancake, looking very much like the chipatties in India. Then the bed of coals is raked open, and the cake laid carefully upon it, and the glowing ashes raked over it. While this is going on, observe the faces of the Arabs gathered round the fire! Every step of the process is watched with eager interest. How their eyes glisten in the firelight! Talk of a dinner prepared by a French cook: it is nothing to the feast of these children of the desert, to which they come with appetites sharpened by hunger. As I watch them night after night, I think how much more they enjoy their supper than we do ours, since they have the pleasure of preparing it as well as of eating it. We, who partake of our meals only when they are placed before us, do not know the exquisite delight of those who enjoy a feast beforehand by witnessing its preparation. This is one of the things which give so keen a zest to gypsy life, and which civilized folk try to imitate in a poor way by getting up a picnic. They find that the same food tastes much better when a whole party are sitting on the grass under a tree, than if it were served on a table. This free outdoor life our Arabs have every day, and their evening meal is one prolonged enjoyment from the time the camp-fire is blazing. We, sitting in our tent, have a regular dinner, with soup and three courses of meat