POLITE ATTENTIONS. 375 



best of humour. The circle nearest the meat 

 hesitating to choose, thinking they possess the 

 advantage of position, find hands intruding from 

 behind, that carry off the very pieces, they had just 

 fixed their minds upo n . 



It was not frequently that I joined these dinners, 

 but whenever I did, I was received with every atten- 

 tion. One after another would push towards me his 

 portion of the meat, or cut off with his knife that 

 which he conceived to be the choicest bit, and 

 which he would hand or toss to me, according as 

 my distance was, from the party who paid me this 

 compliment. Nor were they niggardly in the 

 offerings thus made, and large lumps of fat in 

 quick succession were tempting me to eat from 

 every side. One lucky fellow, happy in the posses- 

 sion of some part of the entrails, would, perhaps, 

 before he presented it for my acceptance, repass it 

 through his pressing fingers, to extract more of its 

 contents, with a kind of instinct, or an acute 

 perception, that the less it contained of the dirty 

 matter the more agreeable it would be to me. 



I have had occasion previously to mention, that it 

 is usual among the Dankalli to make but one meal 

 a-day. It is, however, very seldom that this consists 

 of animal food, for the Bedouins never think of 

 slaughtering cattle for their own use. Milk, and 

 occasionally, as a luxury, draughts of the rich fluid 

 butter called ghee, constituting their food all the 

 year round. On the settlement of blood feuds, 



