502 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1880- 



some semada of Baghdad silk, embroidered with gold 

 thread, shades a complexion a trifle browner than that 

 of the Arabs, a pair of small deep -set eyes, one of them 

 sightless and white, a snub nose, and short upper lip 

 covered with a thick black moustache. His broad 

 shoulders are draped in a handsome military - looking 

 abaye, in stripes of white and crimson. He carries a 

 revolver in his belt, and a long straight sabre, with silver- 

 gilt hilt and scabbard, hangs in a sort of net behind his 

 saddle. Al Mas has travelled with Europeans before ; 

 he knows that they give a good baksheesh, and he is 

 determined to be very civil and get as much out of me as 

 he can, but to make the journey as little troublesome to 

 himself as may be. He made himself very agreeable at 

 first, for he is one of those good-natured fellows who are 

 always pleasant when they have things their own way ; 

 but I soon found him to be a very bad companion to 

 any one who really wanted to see the country. He 

 was terribly bored by my searching for inscriptions, 

 which he declared were all the scratchings of Arab boys. 

 He had a theory of his own about the right way to travel 

 namely, that one should get up in the morning before 

 sunrise, ride till breakfast time, have a comfortable meal 

 and a long smoke, ride on again till there is another 

 opportunity for food and tobacco, and finally turn in an 

 hour after sunset and prepare a substantial supper. He 

 grudged every minute of delay that he was not allowed 

 to spend in eating, sleeping, or smoking the great brazen 

 waterpipe which accompanies him even on the war-path. 

 As he acted as guide through an unknown country, where 

 halting - places necessarily depended on the presence of 

 water, and other points unknown to me, I was often 

 entirely in his hands, and he possessed in perfection the 

 most provoking of Oriental arts, which enables a man, 

 by a combination of lies and passive resistance, to get 

 his own way without formally disobeying orders. More 

 over, Al Mas, with all his apparent good nature, was too 



