DESERT JOURNEYS. 347 



the travellers drink in long refreshing draughts; the camels also 

 press in riotously upon the watering-place, although they might 

 know from experience that they must first be unloaded, tethered, 

 and turned on the grass before they are allowed to quench an 

 unbroken thirst of four or six days. Even at the well not a drop 

 is wasted, therefore the camels first get any water that remains in 

 the skins, and it is not till these are filled up again that the beasts 

 get a fresh draught, and that with more respect to the existing 

 supplies than their actual needs. Only at the copious wells can one 

 satisfy their apparently unbounded desires, and see, not without 

 amusement, how they swallow without ever looking up, and then 

 hasten from the well to the not less eagerly desired pasture, forced 

 by their hobbles to grotesque and clumsy movements, which make 

 their stomachs rumble like half -filled casks. 



And now begins a festival both for travellers and settlers. The 

 former find fresh water, perhaps even milk and meat, to increase 

 the delight of the longed-for resting-time ; the latter gladly welcome 

 any break in their life, which, in good seasons, is very monotonous. 

 One of the camel-drivers finds in the nearest tent the favourite 

 instrument of those who live in the desert, the taTnbura or five- 

 stringed zither, and he knows right well how to use it in accom- 

 paniment to his simple song. The music allures the daughters of 

 the camp, and slim, beautiful women and girls press inquisitively 

 around the strangers, fastening their dark eyes on them and 

 their possessions, inquiring curiously about this and that. Steel 

 thy heart, stranger; else these eyes may set it on fire. They 

 are more beautiful than those of the gazelle, the lips beneath 

 put corals to shame, and the dazzling teeth excel any pearls which 

 thou couldst give these daughters of the desert. And soon all 

 yields to music and to song. Around the zither-player groups 

 arrange themselves for the dance; hands both hard and soft beat 

 time to the tune, the words, and the regular swaying movements. 

 New forms come and those we have become familiar with disappear; 

 there is a constantly changing bustle and crowd around the 

 strangers, who are wise if they regard all with the same innocence 

 and simplicity which their hosts display. All the discomforts of 



