BENGAZI. 
351 
pitched, was highly indicative of what one might imagine of patri- 
archal comfort and tranquillity*. We found the Arabs very hospi- 
table and obliging, and one of our party, who had strayed from the 
rest, and taken shelter at night-fall in one of their tents, was re- 
ceived and entertained with great kindness and liberahty ; a sheep 
having been killed expressly for his supper, and the wmmen of the 
family employed for two hours in preparing it, in the most savoury 
manner with which they were acquainted. While the mutton was 
occupying the united attention of the most accomplished cooks of 
the household, (the mother, one of the wives, and the two eldest 
daughters of the host) another wife had prepared a large dish of 
barley-cakes and fried onions, over which was poured some hot 
melted butter: a great portion of this very speedily disappeared 
before the repeated attacks of the hungry guest, whose appetite for 
the savoury meat which was afterwards served up to him was not 
quite so great as the dish deserved; the skill of the young wife who 
had cooked the first mess was in consequence highly commended by 
her spouse, who could no otherwise account for the great portion of 
meat which was left, than by supposing that the first dish was most 
* As we repassed the same plain in J uly, many heaps of corn and barley were col- 
lected in various parts of it, and the greater part of the verdure had disappeared. We 
found the oxen of the place very busily employed in treading out the grain, in the good 
old-fashioned way practised before the invention of flails ; while the Arabs, availing 
themselves of a little breeze of wind, were occupied in tossing up the grain into the air 
which had been already trodden out, in order to separate it from the husks, after the 
manner often alluded to in Scripture. Among other instances of this allusion, we may 
mention the fragments of Nebuchadnezzar’s image, which are compared in Daniel (ii. 25.) 
to “ the chaff of the summer threshing-floor carried away by the wind.” 
