could be unlimbered for action. We wished to relieve the bearer of his burden, and asked him to give it to one of the mounted men to sling on his saddle; but no, he must have it always in his hand, in case we were attacked by wild beasts (!) or by robbers!! These intimations of danger rather amused us, for we saw no lion in our path, and the wolves and hyenas that lurked in the hills were not fierce enough to attack anything more formidable than a dead camel; and as for robbers, we travelled in the Desert of the Wandering five days without meeting a single man! However, we found before we reached Gaza that our Arab knew better than we, and that there were real dangers before us, against which it was necessary to be on our guard.
The leader of the party was the old sheikh, a somewhat notable personage, of whom I shall speak hereafter.
The camels also were new to us, and with them we had to become acquainted. They too, like their masters, were of another breed than those we had had before. In place of my young dromedary, I had given to me a camel of much larger stature, to whose back I could hardly reach. To mount such a huge beast seemed like climbing a church steeple, and sitting on the vane. However, if she was not handsome, she was good. I found her a quiet creature, that carried me without a murmur over the long stretches of sandy plain. Indeed she was of a gentleness quite unusual among camels, and one that almost required explanation. I learned that, a month before, she had become the mother of a little camel that died, and this sorrow seemed to be in her maternal heart, and to cause her to be in a very sad, and yet very tender, mood. The cameleer who led her was her owner — probably his only possession in the world — and even when not leading her, walked by her side, and never wearied of caressing her. He would
