Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/273

Rh him severely. As soon as there was a break in the crowd, we pushed through, and urging on our camels, at last got clear. As he saw us making our escape, the negro cried out almost piteously, "Are you not going to give us anything?" "Not the mother of a para," said the Doctor (the para being the smallest of coins), and so we came off victorious. The whole scene lasted half an hour, and was very exciting and threatening; but we felt a satisfaction in the fact that we did not, for a single moment, lose our self-possession; that we did not once dismount from our camels, and did not give the rascals a penny! But what an idea it gave us of the barbarism that prowls on the very borders of civilization: for we were no longer in the desert, but in Palestine — in the very Pashalic of Jerusalem!

So we were getting on. We had wished for an adventure, and now we were gratified. To be stopped on the road twice in one forenoon, was something new in our experience. However, there is nothing like being used to it. Half an hour after all this excitement we were seated under a bank in the dry bed of a watercourse, taking our luncheon, as if nothing had happened.

Thus refreshed, we climbed up out of this river bed and came on a broad upland, which presented an aspect of fertility that struck us with astonishment, coming from the long wastes of the desert. Our afternoon's ride lay through a land of plenty — a land flowing with milk and honey. I can hardly describe the pleasure I felt at the first sight of a cow! I wanted to stroke her and pet her. Mingled with the herds of camels was an occasional herd of asses, and what interested me much more were the beautiful herds of horses, for this South Country is a favorite region for raising the finest breeds of pure "Arabians." As a relief to the long monotony of black goats, there were