THIRTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE EAST. 27 



^ouseofthe pilgrim, where we were livinf^ so comfortably, 

 •and establishing ourselves in the miserable palace of our 

 patient, the Agha, who was reduced to such a miserable 

 state of poverty by the robbery, that he could hardly provide 

 for his most urgent necessities, and was very glad to see us 

 order our victuals to be brought from the bazaar. On the 

 third or fourth night of our stay in our new abode, we were 

 alarmed by the same tumults as before, and awakened by a 

 lamentable cry from the women, of " Lilililili," proceeding 

 from the terraces, where they slept in the open air. We soon 

 saw armed Arabs filling the yard, quarrelling and disputing, 

 and we took them for the Agelis. As our room was on the 

 ground-floor, and had only one door and two windows looking 

 into the yard, we imagined ourselves prisoners and lost, till I 

 got to a corner of the window, through the wooden lattice of 

 which I perceived the long tshibuck (pipe) of the Agha, 

 which encouraged me to venture out. He was sitting among 

 a great crowd of his people, quietly smoking his pipe, so 

 drawing nearer to him and saluting him, I inquired about 

 the cause of the tumult. He told me that the mother of the 

 unhappy slain children, having passed a sleepless night, was 

 frightened by the report of a musket, which appeared to 

 proceed from outside the town, and she imagined that the 

 Agelis had come back to attack the palace. She began to 

 scream, and the neighbouring women joined in chorus, crying 

 for help, which awoke all the population of the city. By a 

 strict inquiry, however, it was ascertained that the gun 

 had been fired by the watchman of a garden, to frighten 

 the wild beasts, which resorted to the place for the purpose 

 of devouring the melons. Although the whole affair ended 

 with our fright, we nevertheless desired heartily to depart 

 as soon as possible from that miserable place, where robbery 

 was the order of the day. 



At mid-day we witnessed the owner of an ass being for- 

 cibly deprived of his beast ; the deed was effected before the 

 gates of the city, and the ass was driven away into the 

 desert. In fact, the Arabs in genera! may with justice be 

 looked upon as robbers of the worst description. 

 8 



