504 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1880- 



one day while he was walking, and for fear that the 

 treasure might fall on the ground he went on carrying 

 it in his mouth, and when he was forced to lay it down, 

 carefully spread his cloak under it. After a short time 

 he returned to find it gone, without trace, and his excep 

 tional luck gone with it. So much for Al Mas and his 

 superstitions, on which I need not enlarge just now, as 

 it will be impossible for us to get to Taif without hearing 

 more of them. 



The second in command was a pure Arab, by blood 

 of the Qoreish, the tribe of the Prophet, and by more 

 immediate descent a Wahhabite. His grandfather, Oth- 

 man, and granduncle, Aly, were famous leaders of their 

 party in the days when the Wahhabite power over 

 ran the Hejaz, and threatened to extend their Puritan 

 empire over all Arabia. Mohsin the fair dealer, a 

 common name among the Bedouins who have no great 

 partiality for the current religious names of Islam is a 

 tall muscular fellow, who wears his moustache with a 

 military swagger, and of a cold morning appears wrapped 

 up in a Turkish military cape. Beneath the cape is a 

 scarlet jacket turned up with green the favourite Arab 

 colours. The rest of his dress is that of the Bedouin 

 a short t6b of rough brown cotton, a crooked dagger of 

 Persian steel in the girdle with his pistols, a yellow semada 

 on the head with a mass of tassels dancing behind, his 

 brown legs and feet bare, and a long stick with a hooked 

 knob in his hand, with which he steers his dromedary, 

 tapping it on the head or neck as he encourages it with 

 a deep guttural grunt ikh, ikhkh, ikhkhkh. Mohsin proved 

 a very good, manly fellow, not very talkative, but capable 

 of being drawn out, and with a good knowledge of the 

 country and its traditions. Wahhabite as he was, he 

 was extremely fond of tobacco, and we cemented our 

 friendship over many a cigarette a great decline from 

 the first principles of his sect, when smoking was the 

 second great sin after idolatry. Behind Mohsin s saddle 



