hour and a half during the night we 

 drove down the wadi. Several times we 

 saw a hyena, and once more we brought 

 one down. 



At dawn we began the work of skin- 

 ning. Gar el Nabi pulled a double- 

 edged knife from a sheath on his left arm 

 and helped us. It was no easy job, for 

 each animal had a thick layer of fat un- 

 der a rather thin skin. The fur of these 

 hyenas was very clean. One smelled 

 only slightly of dead camel. The stom- 

 achs contained small pieces of bone and 

 camel skin. Gar el Nabi took the eyes 

 of the hyenas, saying that he would dry 

 them and hang them around the necks 

 of his yoimg boys to make them brave. 

 He informed us that this amulet re- 

 quired about one month to take full ef- 

 fect. He wanted the canine teeth, too, 

 because he believed they transmitted 

 strength and virility to the wearer. He 

 said that men hang a tooth around the 

 neck and women hang one in the arm- 

 pit. I asked him if he ate hyena meat. 

 He did not, but he told me that the Nile 

 f>eople ate the flesh as a cure for rheu- 

 matism and the heart to give them cour- 

 age. Had I known then that the ancient 

 Egyptians fattened hyenas and ate them, 

 I would certainly have tried the clean- 

 smelling meat myself. 



When the skins had been prepared we 

 drove halfway to Umm Shilman plains 

 and spent the remainder of the day eat- 

 ing and resting in the dense shade of an 

 acacia, .^fter eating the last of our beans 

 and rice, I fell asleep listening to the 

 bubbling of a Bedouin's water pipe. 



Though we spent the night routinely 

 hunting the plains, we saw nothing. The 

 following morning a search in the boul- 

 der hills indicated that hyenas were no 

 longer living there; they had undoubt- 

 edly moved to Wadi Murra. Taking 

 stock of what we had seen, we figured 

 we could count on three more hyenas in 

 Wadi Murra, and decided to return. 



Gar el Nabi making coffee 



We followed the main camel road out 

 of Umm Shilman. The individual trails, 

 diverging and converging between wind- 

 rows of stones made driving the slowest 

 I had ever encountered. It took us two 

 hours to go eight miles. Gar el Nabi re- 

 marked to one of the Bedouins in my 

 crew that he had lost a sandal on this 

 road two years before (and we wondered 

 if that was the reason we had been guided 

 this way), .\nyway, our frustration ended 

 at Gar el Nabi's camp when glasses of 

 tea were placed in our hands. 



Several days later, when we returned 

 to Bir Haimur, a large herd of camels 



Watering Camels at Bir Haimur 



was being watered at the well. Three 

 fuzzy-haired Bisharin with swords hang- 

 ing down their backs came to meet us. 

 They had heard of the "hyena hunters" 

 and held us in esteem. Gar el Nabi 

 stood by looking very proud. 



Before we left for Bir Murra, Gar el 

 Nabi honored us by making coffee. 

 Through a hole in one end of an old 

 water skin he withdrew an odd assort- 

 ment of coffee-making implements. First 

 he put some beans in a sardine tin fitted 

 with a handle of twisted wire and roasted 

 them over the fire. Then he pulverized 

 the beans in a wooden mortar with the 

 end of his cane. The coffee was boiled 

 in a small, globular tin pot with a nar- 

 row spout. A bit of ginger was added, 

 but no sugar. When the brew had boiled 

 to his satisfaction, a wad of palm fiber 

 was stuffed into the spout for a filter and 

 coffee was poured into China demitasses. 



While we sipped coffee, we discussed 

 the likelihood of finding hyenas this trip. 

 Gar el Nabi told us that the previous 

 evening his young boys had seen a hyena 

 beside the well. They had thrown stones 

 and the dog had barked at it, but it had 

 not run away. This hyena, he said, 

 could be expected to return, so we de- 

 cided to go to Bir Murra as planned and 

 hunt near Bir Haimur the next night. 



This time we detoured the Umm Shil- 

 man plains and took a route that was 

 sand and gravel all the way to Bir Murra 

 — 20 miles in only 45 minutes. Traps 

 were set and the night hunting routine 

 was carried on as before. We saw the 

 three hyenas and succeeded in shooting 

 one. The following night we shot an- 

 other near Bir Haimur. This one was 

 an old female with her teeth worn to the 

 gums; yet, she was as fat as the others 

 we had shot. 



In our conversations with Gar el Nabi 

 we learned of a place where the wabr or 

 hyrax {Procavia syriacus) lived. This is a 

 rabbit-sized animal with small ears and 

 no tail and called coney or dassy in the 

 Bible. Being an opportunist and a col- 

 lector I decided a few days sf>ent in 

 search of this animal would be well worth 

 the time. Our guide took us north of 

 Bir Haimur over 12 miles of wretched 

 camel road into a wadi where there were 

 prehistoric carvings of ostriches in the 

 rocks. (continued on page 14) 



