90 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



Family into Egypt. Another personage was a 

 middle-aged and rather mild-looking individual, who 

 possessed little more than a sword, and was on his 

 way to Abyssinia, where some fighting was expected 

 with neighbouring savage tribes. He proposed to 

 take part in it, and to make his profit from the slaves 

 he captured. He was an old hand at this, and his 

 businesslike account of the process was explicit. It 

 was a moot question with him on each occasion when 

 a man had been captured, whether to mutilate him at 

 once or not. If so, the man was apt to die, and 

 would certainly require costly attention for a long 

 time ; on the other hand, if he recovered, his market 

 value was greatly increased. I shall have a little 

 to say later on of some results of the particular slave- 

 hunting expedition which this worthy person went 

 to join. 



A caravan yields so many strange experiences 

 and affords so many occasions of mutual helpfulness 

 and of friendships, that it is easy to understand the 

 importance of the Hadj pilgrimage in uniting 

 Moslems. I have often wished that something of 

 the sort could be revived among ourselves, such as 

 the famous Canterbury Pilgrimage of Chaucer, but 

 the religious motive for real pilgrimages is generally 

 wanting in Protestant countries. The Congresses of 

 large itinerant societies like the British Association, in 

 some few respects may be considered as taking the 

 place of pilgrimages, but they want the long hours 

 and days of open-air life, hard exercise, and leisure. 



After four days' travel from morning to evening, 

 we came to a half-way place where a brack but 

 drinkable water was to be had, which replaced the 



