356 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



ently lifeless forms start into sudden action. "We 

 remember sometimes as the noontide hours were 

 dragging their slow length along, a clattering of 

 horses' hoofs would be heard in the yard. In a few 

 minutes, cavasses and servants, bathmen and Turkish 

 guards, would be hurrying as much as a Turk ever 

 does hurry towards the sound. On looking into 

 the yard to see the cause of this unusual excitement, 

 we would see two horses, reeking with perspiration, 

 nostrils distended, flanks heaving, and so wretchedly 

 thin and worn withal, that we would not have been 

 surprised if one or both had dropped down dead on 

 the spot. One horse carries a pair of large leathern 

 bags ; on the other sits a man with the broad shoul- 

 ders and thick arms of a giant. His face, notwith- 

 standing the dark colour of the skin, has a terribly 

 sunburnt look, and his beard and moustaches, once 

 glossy and sleek with the blackest of " reng," are 

 now white with the dust of travel. In the creases of 

 his upper coat and of his enormous boots lie whole 

 drifts of the desert sands. The reins drop mechani- 

 cally from his hands ; and as he devoutly mutters a 

 sonorous prayer to Allah, he makes himself into as 

 heavy and into as helpless a bundle as he possibly 

 can, and drops off his horse into the arms of a cavass, 

 who stands by with muscles braced ready to receive 

 the inert mass. In the course of a few minutes that 

 brawny breadth of shoulder, that formidable thick- 

 ness of the arms that had so attracted our attention, 



