where he goes to sell his camels and his wool. He has had to pay a good deal for them, but they will wear several life times. Besides, they are the only kind of beds and seats he can carry with him. He has to move about a good deal to find food and water for his animals. He loves the rugs for their beautiful colors and patterns. Can you guess why?
Every one is asleep but Sal'adin, the master's Arabian horse. Saladin stands beside his sleeping master in the tent. He is small and dainty. His coat is like black satin. He holds up his proud head on his arched neck. He stamps his little polished hoofs on the sand. Saladin is the family pet. He is very gentle. He skims over the desert like a bird, with his master on his back. Mehemet gave him some dates to eat before he went to sleep. Zaidee kissed his black nose.
At sunset, a cool breeze blows across the desert. Everybody wakes up and sits on the mats outside the tent. Mother brings her loom to weave camel's hair cloth. The herdsmen milk the camels and goats. A servant woman makes mocha coffee. It is the best coffee in the world. The children drink goat's milk. They all eat crisp bread cakes like our crackers. They are made of wheat, barley or millet seed flour, and baked on hot stones. They eat a stew of goat's flesh or mutton. For dessert they eat dates and almonds.
Zaidee is very pretty. She would not be so very dark, but the hot sun has burned her as brown as a gypsy. Her hair is black and straight. Her soft, almond-shaped eyes are the color of brown velvet. She wears wide trousers and a loose gown of blue cotton. On her head is a blue cloth, bound into a long-tailed bonnet-cap with a band of goat's hair. She has copper and silver bracelets on her arms and ankles, and strings of glass beads. Her brother wears a long white shirt with a leather girdle, and a white cotton bonnet, bound with goat's hair. When they walk on the sharp, hot sand, they both put on leather sandals. The father wears a white turban made of many folds of thin stuff wound around his head. He smokes a pipe.
Sometimes, as the family sits in the starlight, the father or mother tells stories like those you read in the Arabian Nights. Perhaps, because of their dull lives in the dry and barren desert, the Arabs have made up the most wonderfully colored and fanciful stories of any people in the world. Their stories are full of the splendors of palaces and princes. They sparkle with jewels and are woven of
