THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS 269 



minable crawl over dune and hollow, which always kept 

 him just out of reach of our protests. Every time he 

 paused to look for the best place to cross a ridge we hoped 

 to hear the barraking cry, but always he shuffled on in 

 broken sandals, monotonously, untiringly. The wind 

 dropped at sunset, but we marched through the sickly, 

 grey light, with a faint lemon glow in the west and only 

 when the full twelve hours were completed did Suleiman 

 allow us to crawl into our flea-bags, half -frozen, half- 

 starved; for everyone was too tired to cook. 



I believe I took off my boots, but certainly nothing 

 else, for I remember how bulky my red hezaam felt in 

 the narrow space; but I slept for nine blissful hours and 

 ate far more than my share of sardines and dates in the 

 morning. The rice was a strange, blackish grey colour,, 

 due to the girba water. The colour and smell of this 

 water after a few days are a great preventive of thirst. 

 We had gone back to the old ration of three cups of 

 water per day, with a. fourth for cooking. We soon 

 found that hot coffee made us too thirsty, but that cold, 

 strong, sugarless tea produced rather the opposite effect. 

 A much worse discovery greeted us that exceedingly cold 

 morning of January 31. Three of the girbas had either 

 dried in the sand-filled wind or leaked away. There was 

 scarcely the morning ration left in them. We spoke to 

 the retinue seriously when we found them drinking 

 copiously, but were baffled by their fatalism. We still 

 had a girba a day and two fanatis to spare, so they refused 

 to consider the infinite possibilities of delay, illness, loss, 

 leakage, or a camel needing water by the way. "What 

 is written is written," said Yusuf. "You cannot run 

 away from fate. That is what the eagle said to Sulei- 

 man." "What eagle?" I demanded suspiciously. 



"The prophet Suleiman was sitting on a hill, from 

 which he could see many cities, when an eagle came to 



