Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/84

70 who sometimes had the honor of leading my camel. He was a bright little Arab, and never looked up to me without a smile on his face. Perhaps he saw a smile in the face looking down upon him. I taught him one English word — "good" — and the manner in which he would repeat after me "Good, good, good," was the amusement of the whole party. How patiently he trudged along from day to day, always merry, without a care — a creature of the sun, living in its beams. Poor little Selim! where is he now? Watching the flock of black goats on the hillside? Does he ever think of the Howadji? The Howadji sends him his blessing. May he too have goats and camels, and a black tent, and the fairest daughter of the tribe for his little wife, and find many an occasion to chuckle within him, "Good, good, good!"

Of course there are Bedaween and Bedaween. I am far from thinking that all are quite so gentle as ours thus far have been. More than once we have met a savage-looking fellow, who seemed to be roaming about without any purpose, and who certainly looked like a brigand, with his cutlass at his side and his blunderbuss on his back. What style of address he might have used had he met one of us alone, I cannot say. Perhaps he would not have stood upon forms of politeness. But seeing us well attended and well defended, instead of demanding our money or our life, he asked only tobacco to fill his pipe, and went on his way perhaps a little disappointed, but not altogether sullen and threatening.

I ought to add, although it is anticipating, that this favorable opinion of the Bedaween was a good deal modified several weeks later, when we got among the robber tribes on the border of Palestine. But for the present we were among the gentle Tawarah, the Arabs of Sinai, of whom I here record my first impressions.