DESERT JOURNEYS. 339 



he loaded his camel, after he had shared with it a few handfuls of 

 soft-boiled dhurra grains the sole food of both; all through the 

 long day he strides behind his beast, without a bite to eat, with 

 at most an occasional mouthful of ill -smelling water; the sun 

 scorches his head, the glowing sand burns his feet, the hot air 

 parches his sweating body; for him there is no time to pause or 

 rest; he may perhaps have had to change the loads of some of the 

 beasts, or to catch one or other which had bolted; and yet he sings! 

 It is the approach of night which inspires him. 



When the sun goes to rest, the limbs of these wizened children of 

 the desert seem to become supple again; in this, as in all else, they 

 are like their mother. Like her they are parched at noon, like her 

 they revive at night. As the sun declines, their poetic gifts weave 

 golden dreams even in waking hours. The singer praises the well- 

 springs rich in water, the groups of palms around them, and the dark 

 tents in the shade; he greets a brown maiden in one of the tents, 

 who hails him with welcome; he extols her beauty, likens her eyes 

 to those of the gazelle, and her mouth to a rose, whose fragrance 

 is as her words, and these as pearls in his ear; for her sake he 

 rejects the sultan's eldest daughter, and longs for the hours when 

 fate shall permit him to share her tent. But his comrades admonish 

 him to seek after higher joys, and raise his thoughts to the Prophet, 

 " who satisfies all longing". 



Such is the song which falls on the Northerner's ears, and the 

 songs of home rise to his lips, and when the last rosy flush of the 

 setting sun fades away, when night stretches her robe of witchery 

 over the desert, then it seems to him as if the hardest had been 

 easy, as though he had suffered no thirst in the heat, nor discomfort 

 by the way. Cheerfully he leaps from the saddle, and while the 

 drivers unload and tether the camels, he heaps and smooths the 

 sand for his bed, spreads his carpet and coverlet, and gives himself 

 over with delight to the rest he had longed for. 



The small camp-fire illumines the plain only for a few paces. 

 Around it the dark, half -naked sons of the desert move about 

 busily; the flame casts a weird light on them, and in the half- 

 darkness they look like shadows. The bales and boxes, saddles and 



