First he fell out with the servant of the
Germans, Mahommed of Tunis. Then he quarrelled with us all, because he
picked up a blanket for somebody and was refused his modest demand of
three piastres as a reward. We are heartily glad that he is tamed for
awhile.
On the 12th, shortly after we started, I happened to look behind and
saw, coming from the west, some clouds that seemed to give promise of
rain. Already I felt the air cooled by anticipation, but was soon
undeceived. In the course of an hour a gheblee began to blow, and
continued to increase in violence until it enervated the whole caravan.
Our poor black women began to drop with fatigue, and we were compelled
to place them on the camels. Here was a foretaste of the desert, its
hardships and its terrors! The air was full of haze, through which we
could scarcely see the flagging camels, with their huge burdens; and the
men, as they crawled along, were apparently ready to sink on the ground
in despair. We breathed the hot atmosphere with difficulty and
displeasure.
Right glad were we then, at length, to reach the Wady Taghijah, where I
at once recognised my old desert friend, under whose spreading and heavy
boughs I once had passed a night alone in the Sahara,--the ethel-tree!
It is a species of _Pinus_, growing chiefly in valleys of red clay on
the top of mounds, which are sometimes overshadowed by a gigantic tree,
with arms measuring four feet in circumference.
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