Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/71

 Desert. It seemed a strange place in which to look for flowers. But he proved by observation that what is so beautiful in poetry is true in fact ; that

 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on tho desert air.”

In one month on the desert he collected over three hundred and fifty species of plants, most of which were unknown in Syria.

We had not gone far when we descried in the distance @ caravan approaching. What could it be? Pilgrims from Mecca? But this was not the road to Mecca. As we drew nearer, it proved to be a company of Russian pilgrims returning from Mount Sinai — thirty-two of them, of whom only two were men. The greater number of women suggested that it was perhaps in performance of a vow that they had made a pilgrimage to the Convent of St. Catherine, which is a favorite shrine with the Russian peasants. Recognizing in us pilgrims bound to the same destination, they looked down upon us from the height of their camels with smiles of pleasure, and kept bowing and smiling till their camels had borne them past, and they quickly disappeared on the horizon of the desert.

These pilgrims were followed by a company of Bedaween, bound in the same direction, but on an errand of business instead of a pilgrimage of devotion. Bestriding their camels were huge sacks laden with charcoal, which the Arabs make from the few shrubs or stunted trees which they find in the mountains, and which form almost the only article which they can produce, for which they can obtain money, or anything which must be bought with money. They were now bound for Suez to sell their charcoal. To go and return would take them a week’s time, and as the fruit of their journey and their labor, a camel’s load would bring perhaps twenty francs, with which they would