CHAPTER IV 



LITERATURE AND POLITICS 



" 2nd Jan., 1905. 



" This is the first day I have been able to write. I have had a 

 terrible time of depression, the climax being when news came in from 

 the desert that Suliman's pretty Bedouin wife Aida had died suddenly 

 of smallpox. This is so miserable a thing that I still cannot bear to 

 think of it. From the time Suliman married her I have had a little 

 sentiment about her. She was old Dahil Allah's daughter, a tall, 

 straight girl with beautiful eyes and a sweet pathetic voice. Suliman 

 was very choice with her and he covered her veil with coins. She 

 was a happy sight, leading out her flocks to pasture, and, later, with 

 her children. She had always a pleasant word of greeting for me, 

 and she used to make me little ornamented head stalls and camel ropes 

 of wool each year for my camels. This year when I came back I was 

 distressed to find that for some reason she had been driven with her 

 sheep out of our enclosure and that she was camped in a wretched 

 place outside among the mounds of Heliopolis. I went with Suliman 

 to see her. Her pretty clothes were soiled and ragged and her youth 

 had faded sadly away from her. Perhaps it is best she should be dead. 

 She kissed my hand and held it awhile and I asked after her children. 

 She was to go away with them two days later, to Wady Harbelama, 

 taking the flocks to the new pasture which is plentiful this year after 

 the rain in the hills, and I promised to ride a little way with them on 

 the morning of the rahala (flitting) and to pay them a visit later at 

 their new camp, but it was a damp sunrise when they started, and I did 

 not go out till too late. Aida was taken ill only two days after their 

 arrival at Harbelama, and seven days later she was dead. Poor old 

 Suliman is partly paralysed. What now will he do? 



" yd Jan.— Port Arthur capitulated yesterday after a pretty stubborn 

 defence, 5,000 men of the garrison left. How foolish our stupid Eng- 

 lish generals must feel when they see the strongest fortress in the world 

 taken, fort after fort, by storm by the Japanese. This will probably 

 end the war, for with all their talk the Russians will know now their 

 case is hopeless. 



" 4th Jan. — To-day I insisted upon being put upon my mare, and 

 carried to the outer enclosure, where we have a tent pitched. Miss 



"3 



