522 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1880- 



water drawn fresh from the spring. The first business 

 at every halt is to gather firewood and prepare coffee. 

 To do this properly an elaborate apparatus is thought 

 necessary a long ladle to roast the beans, with a spoon 

 chained to it for stirring and turning them, a brass 

 mortar and pestle, and three coffee pots. When the 

 beans are roasted and ground, a few sharp strokes with 

 the pestle on the side of the mortar warn the company 

 that coffee will be ready immediately. The powder is 

 placed in one pot, the water, already boiling in the second, 

 is poured over it, and the liquid is allowed to simmer 

 gently by the fire, while two or three cloves of cardamom 

 and a small piece of dry ginger are pounded up and put 

 into the third pot. The coffee is decanted into this, and 

 is then ready for drinking. The small cups of thick 

 earthenware are produced from a canister, in which they 

 lie, along with the cloth used for wiping them. As there 

 is no saucer and no handle to the cup, it is never more 

 than a third filled, and every one is expected to have at 

 least three helpings. It is a point of strict etiquette not 

 to fill the cup, which would be regarded as a &quot; shame.&quot; 

 The Bedouins are agreed upon this, but the exact amount 

 which may be poured into the cup is different in different 

 tribes. The Beni Malik, who have other idiosyncrasies, 

 such as permitting their women to go unveiled, barely 

 cover the bottom of the cup. By the time that the coffee 

 has been drunk, a good mass of hot embers has accumu 

 lated, and Hamid proceeds to bake a cake of unleavened 

 bread, which is mixed in a metal basin and kneaded on 

 a skin. However large the company, there must be but 

 one cake (qurs or mella). The embers are scraped aside, 

 and the mella placed on the hot sand is covered with 

 them. In a few minutes it is baked, the ashes are scraped 

 from the hard crust, and the bread is pounded up into 

 rough fragments in the baking basin. Clarified butter is 

 poured over it from a small skin, sugar or honey is added, 

 and while still hot the whole is worked up with hands 



