Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/440

406 away if a pocket-handkerchief were shaken at them. It was the prettiest thing to see them gambolling about in the moonlight; but after we had turned in a strange effect was produced when a jackal, smelling the cookery, ran up round the tent, for the shadow on the white canvas looked as large as a figure exaggerated in a magic lantern. During my first night under canvas I was awakened by hearing a pack coming—a wild, unearthly sound. I thought it was a raid of the Bedawin rushing down upon us, and that this was the war-cry; but the weird yell swept down upon us, passed, and died away in the distance. I grew to love the sound.

The next morning the camp began stirring at dawn. It was bitterly cold. We boiled water and male some tea. We hurried our dressing, saw the animals ft and watered, tents struck, things packed up, and the baggage animals loaded and sent on ahead with orders to await us at Jayrud. We always found it better to see our camp off ahead of us, otherwise the men loitered and did not reach the night-halt in time. We started a little later. The way to Jayrud was across a sandy plain, with patches oi houses here and there, and a village at Lone intervals. A village on the outskirts of the desert means twenty or thirty huts of ties and mud, each shaped like a box, and exactly the same colour as the ground. We breakfasted in a ruined mosque. After that we started again, and came to a vast plain of white sand and rock, which lasted until we reached Jayrud. It was about fifteen hours' ride from Damascus. A little way outside Jayrud we were caught in a sand-Storm, which I shall never forget.