388 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



men was a Kurd, the other an Arab. Any national 

 characteristic they might have had in early days had 

 been completely obliterated by the levelling hand of 

 the Pasha's service. The Kurd had little to distin- 

 guish him from the Arab, though he did certainly 

 look rather the greater villain of the two. Had the 

 question of cutting our throats arisen, the Arab 

 would, no doubt, have seconded, but the Kurd most 

 assuredly would have put the motion. They were 

 both armed to the teeth, and had all sorts of strange 

 contrivances fastened about their persons. Powder- 

 flasks of various shapes and sizes, cartouche-boxes, 

 and an odd contrivance for striking fire at an instant's 

 notice, were among the numerous things that dangled 

 around their hips. In addition to a whole girdleful 

 of side-arms, one carried a lance, the other a long 

 matchlock, with slow match kindled, ready for im- 

 mediate action. "When our gallop was over, and we 

 were ambling along at a more sober pace, some pre- 

 monitory signs given by our escort made us aAvare 

 that they now thought a fit opportunity had arrived 

 of giving us some idea of their martial prowess. 

 The Kurd blew up his match, and gave a tug at his 

 long wiry moustaches, with the air of a man prepared 

 for some doughty deed. The Arab shook his lance, 

 gave a yell not an ordinary yell, let me add, but a 

 yell that, going up somewhere above our heads, burst 

 in the serene still air of early day, and shivered it 

 into ragged reverberating fragments took his horse 



