THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS 253 



prolonged fight. We built our zaribas with their backs 

 to the persistent north wind, but nature played us a 

 trick, for the temperature descended unpleasantly. We 

 sat comfortably inside our flea-bags, however, cooking 

 rice and coffee and watched a fading moon slowly dim 

 our sohtary candle. 



Next morning Mohammed roused us long before the 

 dawn and we were away by 7 a.m., but we were very 

 under-staffed, for Amar and old Suleiman were both 

 too feeble to lift the immense fodder loads and Has- 

 sanein and I were exceedingly inefficient! Neverthe- 

 less, complete cheerfulness still reigned. The Beduins 

 invented and sang lustily doggerel rhymes of personal 

 tendencies, such as, 



" If Sidi Yusuf won't walk to-day, 

 A new little wife won't come his way." 



We saw the Hawaish mountains, a long line of round 

 peaks on the horizon, about 8 a.m., and at the same 

 moment discovered that our new guide had deficient 

 sight. He was a little, old, wizened Beduin, very poor 

 but very shrewd for all his apparent simplicity. He 

 was clad only in worn sandals, an ancient leather skull 

 cap and a pathetically tattered grey jerd. He was quite 

 illiterate and his rare speech was in a dialect which 

 even Mohammed found some difficulty in following. 

 He shuffled along all day, bent over his palm stick, 

 untiring and unresponsive, though occasionally his 

 cracked, hoarse voice joined in the lilting refrains of 

 the retinue. Only when he failed to pick out a certain 

 hill with a cleft top did he tell us that he had once 

 rashly interfered in a private battle between two black 

 soldiers and received a blow on the head which had 

 permanently damaged his eyesight. After this admis- 

 sion I think we all expected to lose the way, but one 



