THE CARAVAN. 143 



make the best bargain you can with the next 

 sheikh ; or, if he proves too hard a customer for 

 you, you must (many as pretty a man as you 

 hath done it before you) e'en turn back again 

 the way you came. The transportation of Eu- 

 ropean travellers is a source of great profit to 

 the Arabs, and every tribe jealously reserves to 

 itself the exclusive right to this lucrative em- 

 ployment within its own limits. The sheikhs 

 not unfrequently undertake to smuggle caravans 

 across each other's territories, but if detected in 

 the attempt, they are sure to be resisted unto 

 blood ; and it is not above three or four years 

 since a sheikh, who was thus breaking his neigh- 

 bour's close, with a company of English travel- 

 lers, between Mount Sinai and Akaba, being 

 met by a party of the offended tribe, was led 

 aside into a thicket and butchered on the spot. 

 On these occasions, violence is seldom offered to 

 the traveller, unless he is foolish enough to pro- 

 voke it, but he is exposed to much annoyance 

 and delay, and his effects are likely to be roughly 

 handled in the melee. 



" But let us come back to our contract. Your 

 Arab sheikh, though a gentleman of an ancient 

 house, is a great adept at driving a bargain, and 

 during the operation, he imbibes (at the cost of 

 his customer) a monstrous quantity of coffee 

 and tobacco smoke, much in the same way, and 



