114 LIFE WITH THE HAMRAN ARABS. 



temperature is 80 or higher, and there is scarcely 

 a breath of wind. The sun rapidly dries the long strips 

 into chips, and when a large quantity of them is accu- 

 mulated, they are packed in bundles and sent on camels 

 to the villages ; so, long after we have left the country, 

 the natives will have good reason to remember us, if 

 the rate of exportation continues as at present. There 

 is no doubt it adds immensely to the pleasure of our 

 sport to know that not a scrap of the animals we shoot 

 is unnecessarily wasted, and indeed that all , is turned to 

 valuable account. 



Judging by the minimum thermometer register, it 

 might be supposed that our nights are very cool ; but 

 they are much the reverse until towards daybreak, when 

 the temperature falls to the low point daily recorded, 

 and it then remains pleasantly cool until the sun has 

 well risen. 



Eighty degrees Fahrenheit, rendered doubly oppres- 

 sive by the perfect stillness of the air, on going to bed, 

 and being disturbed in one's slumbers by a reduction 

 of temperature to 50 Fahr., mean, in other words, lying 

 down in a Turkish bath and waking up in an ice-house, 

 and make it a point of no small difficulty how to calculate 

 best for the night's repose. The recent nocturnal ramble 

 of the lion has also complicated matters, for now such 

 huge fires are blazing close to us that an ox might be 

 roasted before them, and indeed our horses appear to 



