PLUNDERED BY ARABS. 119 



tight and scanty clothes, and has some difficulty in 

 reconciling himself to them again." Poor Sonnini 

 had sufficient reason to lament the loss of his hair 

 on one occasion. During his passage across a sandy 

 desert, he fell into the hands of a band of Bedouin 

 Arabs. They numbered nearly a hundred, while 

 his own little party consisted of six men only, it 

 was hopeless to resist, and the unhappy travellers 

 threw down their weapons. " Immediately," says 

 Sonnini, " they came upon us, and stripped us in 

 an instant. They left me only my under waist- 

 coat and my breeches ; my companions were 

 stripped to the shirt. My turban having also been 

 taken, my head, bare and shaved, was exposed to 

 the burning heat of the sun, and pained me exces- 

 sively ; and although I covered it as well as I could 

 with both of my hands, this precaution afforded me 

 no relief. The booty was spread upon the sand, 

 and the whole party, not without noisy quarrels, 

 began to divide the spoil. 



" The scene would have furnished a striking- 

 subject for a picture. On one side might have 

 been represented the gang of robbers covered with 

 dust, their countenances parched as the sands, 

 quarrelling about the booty ; in the midst of them 

 my old servant, endeavouring, with great coolness, 

 to seize upon some articles of which we had been 

 plundered, and occasionally making snatches at 



