Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/228

 club is in a city: it is the place of the "conversazione", where the Arabs tell all the gossip of the camp or the tribe, and discuss the matters of their little world with as much eagerness as the politics of England are discussed in the clubs of London. The amusement which Frenchmen would seek in a theatre, these simple children of the desert find in telling stories, which are often received with shouts of laughter, and which not seldom are continued fay into the night. At length the laughter ceases, the fires grow dim, and the Arab

(which consists of his one miserable garment)

"Dreams"! Does the Bedawee ever dream? Yes indeed: wny should he not dream? All the riches he possesses lie in the land of dreams. Sleeping on the desert, under the sky, he sees visions and dreams dreams of all which makes the delight of an Arab's existence. That poor fellow who lies there with his head in the sand, is dreaming now of the Oasis of Feiran, of the running brook and the palms that bend over it, and of his companions who watch the flocks of black goats on the mountain side. But whatever his dreams, they do not interrupt his deep, sound slumber. That group round the smouldering campfire lie motionless as if in death, yet are ready to spring up at the first streak of dawn.

As the next day was our sixth since we left Mount Sinai, and we wished to be at Nukhl for our camp over Sunday, and feared lest we might be delayed by rain, we started at an early hour, so early indeed that a little after noon we reached the great plain, at the farther end of which we descried the fort. Nukhl is a notable place on the desert, as it is the chief station on the route of