180 
JOURNEY FROM 
the Dubbah, who had left us, as before stated, to make arrangements 
for furnishing us with others. He entered our tent with three large 
ostrich eggs wrapped up very carefully in the folds of his baracan, 
(for this garment may be considered as a general envelope for every- 
thing which an Arab thinks worthy of a cover,) and having unfolded 
them, one by one, laid them down very solemnly and ceremoniously, 
and with the greatest air of consequence imaginable, on the mat upon 
which we were sitting. All this was of course intended to enhance 
the value of the present, and we received it accordingly with all due 
acknowledgments. The prelude being over, Shekh Mahommed 
assumed a very mysterious air, and drew a little closer towards us ; 
then low'ering his voice, which was not usually one of the most gentle, 
he began to inform us (looking occasionally round the tent, as if he 
feared to be overheard from without) that a large troop of maraud- 
ing Arabs were then at Kebri t, having recently arrived there from 
the neighbourhood of Cairo, and that they were lying in wait lor our 
party. There could be no doubt, he added, of the truth of this state- 
ment, for one of his own sons had just arrived from Cairo himself ! On 
our asking him whether this son had actually seen the Arabs in ques- 
tion, he replied that, as yet, no person had seen them, but that the 
prints of horses' feet, to the number of sixty, had been observed about 
the wells near Kebrit, and that there could be no doubt whatever ol 
the sinister intentions of the party. “ But fear nothing,” continued 
the Shekh, with an air of greater importance, “ while the Dubbah is 
your friend and conductor ; for I will myself,” said he, “ go on in 
advance, and if I find the tracks of hostile horses about the wells. 
