208 LIFE WITH THE HAMRAN ARABS. 



day hunting in vain for rhinoceros. Returning home, 

 Essafi suddenly dashed off at his horse's best speed in 

 the direction of some vultures swooping about so far off 

 that I could barely see them. Upon arriving at the 

 place round which they were rapidly collecting we found 

 a dead rhinoceros, and recognised it as the one I 

 wounded the day before yesterday and tracked to within 

 a few hundred yards of where it was lying. Essafi 

 says that, directly he saw the vultures, he was sure he 

 would find it there. Some camel-men belonging to 

 another hunting expedition, under Jali, have paid us a 

 visit on their way home, and report having been attacked 

 by the Base, who rushed down upon them from their 

 hills as they passed along the valley of the river near 

 here, and demanded half the produce of their spoil, con- 

 sisting of the hides and tusks of three elephants; but 

 they were ultimately content with the present of a third 

 portion. This modesty scarcely agrees with the general 

 character given of our black-skinned neighbours. We 

 hear that they are a much darker race than the Hamrans, 

 and have quite different features. Hadji Basheer, dressed 

 in his best attire slightly the worse for wear, though 

 very picturesque in its patchiness and mounted on one 

 of our chargers, paid the Arab camp a very early visit, 

 full of determination to impress upon the hunters the 

 power he wielded, and to claim his own, his long-lost 

 child ; but his energies were wasted, for the donkey was 



