40 SPORT AND TRAVEL PAPERS 



The shepherds work very hard, live on nothing but milk, with 

 occasionally perhaps a little dhurra, and get nothing for it. 

 The women in these villages are husy all day long mat-making, 

 and no doubt earn some money for their husband, hence the 

 more wives a man has the more dollars he makes, and the more 

 is afterwards squeezed out of him by his sheikh. Everything 

 purchased from an Arab has to be paid for through the sheikh, 

 who of course retains part. Only a small share of our hunters' 

 wages reached them, and even backsheesh given for game found 

 and killed had to be given up afterwards to the individual who 

 certainly deserved it least. In name these men are not slaves, 

 but I doubt whether anywhere greater tyranny exists than in 

 these small village communities. 



The flocks belonging to some of the villages are enormous. 

 I have often watched them being watered, from sunrise to sunset 

 sometimes without intermission, and not at one well only, but 

 at six or eight at the same time, provided each with at least one 

 mud tank constantly kept filled. At early dawn shepherds, 

 naked but for a small leathern apron, in twos and threes, would 

 go to the wells, one descending into it to fill the leathern bucket, 

 the others pulling it up by its long rope and emptying it into 

 the basin made of baked mud, accompanying their heavy task 

 with a monotonous sing-song. Their work lasted during the 

 whole day, and it must indeed be no easy matter to keep the 

 reservoirs filled when thirsty animals, closely packed, are 

 crowding round them without intermission slaking their thirst 

 thirst which they can satisfy but once in the twenty-four hours. 

 Soon after sunrise the flocks come down into the river-bed, 

 where the wells are always sunk, from both sides and by various 

 tracks, always led and held in check by their shepherds, and 

 accompanied by one or two others. Herds of goats, sheep, 

 cows, and camels arrived one after another. Some were driven 

 at once to a well, others had to wait until some drinking-place 

 would be vacant. The men seemed to have great control over 

 their numerous charges, and marshalled in compact bodies 

 would keep them quietly lying and waiting in the sand. It was 

 always a very picturesque scene, the numerous flocks and herds 

 of every kind of domestic animal almost, some drinking, others 

 waiting, some arriving, others leaving ; the spears of the shep- 

 herds stuck upright into the sand near the wells, and their 



