408 THE LION KILLER. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 



A NIGHT WITH THE ARABS : WITH SEVERAL TRUE AND INSTRUC- 

 TIVE LEGENDS, ADAPTED FOR FLIRTING GIRLS AND PRE- 

 SUMPTUOUS BOYS. 



I commenced this, my last campaign, in the latter part of 

 the lusty month of October, and for the first three days of my 

 excursion I hunted the mountains of Ounk-Jemel, and then 

 pitched my camp in the country of the Ouled Sassi, between 

 El-Hanout and the Zerazer. 



My tent was the signal of festival among all the tribes, and 

 I was received, as usual, with open arms. From far and near 

 the first men of the tribes, the bravest warriors, and the best 

 hunters, came to salute the new comer, who had so often 

 threaded with them the mountain-paths, and bid him welcome 

 to their tents, and to the half of all they owned. 



We passed the first night, Hamida and I, under the tent 

 of the Sheik, lighted by the great fire that burned without, 

 and filled with the bronzed figures of the Arabs, and talked 

 lion. The men sat in a circle, squatted on the ground ; their 

 pipes sent up their columns of smoke, their black eyes gleamed 

 under the capuchins of their burnous, and one after the other 

 took up the tale, and with brief speech and expressive gesture, 

 chased the lion from Dan to Beersheba, or when younger 

 tongues spoke, wove in turn oriental legends of flowers and 

 beasts, and girls with eyes like springs in the desert. 



Severed, as I had been, for a year or more from sight of 



