210 SIR VICTOR BROOKE CHAP. 



swooping beautifully. The owl had something (a 

 quail ?) in his talons. They disappeared, and Vetter 

 having sent his black man to see what had happened, 

 he returned with a short-eared owl dead, the entire top 

 of his head being carried away. Our tents arrived when 

 it was dark, and we had some trouble pitching them. 

 Having no cook, we had to do our own dinner, and after- 

 wards turned on to our mattresses at about nine o'clock. 

 It was very hot in the night, and with this and the 

 endless chatter of the Bedouins I hardly slept a wink. 



Monday, ^th March. Up at four. It was very 

 cold standing about while the tents were being packed, 

 etc. It was very picturesque to see the old sheikh 

 sitting at the foot of a mound watching his men 

 packing, a splendid falcon on his gloved wrist, his 

 favourite little boy beside him with another falcon on 

 his wrist. At last we got under weigh, the air clear 

 and crisp, but very cold. The caravan consisted of ten 

 camels, three or four exclusively used by Mavgelli, who 

 had also his horse in case of wishing to change ; five 

 horses, fifteen Bedouins, and four gazelle dogs. These 

 latter are miserable, skinny, greyhound-like brutes, and 

 very savage. As soon as we got through the district 

 of humps, the desert became much firmer, and stretched 

 away on all sides of us like a sea. There were 

 quantities of plants and low bushes, which grew chiefly 

 in the wadies, owing doubtless to the rain which occa- 

 sionally flows down them. Heard a bird whistling 

 most powerfully and sweetly, and on going to see what 

 it was, found my old friend the desert-loving bifasciated 

 lark whistling his morning hymns to the rising sun. 

 Saw also cream - coloured coursers, which generally 

 happens, I find, wherever their friend the lark is. The 

 men dug a splendid little fennec fox out of a hole, and 

 ran him down with the dogs, giving no start. These 



