MERGE TO GYRENE. 
481 
soud was an Egyptian, and took every occasion to show his superiority, 
in point of civilization, over the Arabs and Moors of the west. He 
was particularly proud of his singing ; and as his lungs were nearly 
equal to his conceit, was never tired of displaying his fancied abili- 
ties to the utmost extent of his voice, not dreaming for a moment 
that any of his auditors could possibly be less amused with his efforts 
than himself. With this view, he always kept close to our side, 
adapting the pace of his horse to ours, and quavering without inter- 
mission. His voice was good, and had he been able to moderate it, 
and to use it only on proper occasions, would rather have cheered 
than annoyed us on the road ; for his songs had some subject, and 
were infinitely preferable to the tiresome monotony and endless 
repetition of two or three unmeaning words which had been so 
unmercifully dinned into our ears ever since we left Tripoly. The 
songs of the Arabs are however not always without a subject, as the 
examples which we have of their poetry in England will testify ; but 
we are obliged to confess that the greatest attempts at invention 
which we ourselves noticed in a journey of seven or eight hundred 
miles were nothing more than short allusions to what was going 
forward at the time, or to something which was in anticipation. 
For instance, in ascending a hill, the song of our Arab companions 
would be — “ Now we are going up the hill — now we are going up the 
hill.” And in descending — “ Now we are going down — now we are 
going down.” Each sentence being repeated all the time the action 
alluded to was going forward, without the slightest variation of any 
kind. In approaching a town, the song would consist of something 
3 Q 
