him?" "That would depend on how he came to us. If he came as an enemy, we should treat him as an enemy. If he raised his spear, we should attack him, and perhaps kill him or make him prisoner. But if he threw himself upon our hospitality, we should do him no harm; but, on the contrary, we would defend him and protect him, and conduct him in safety to the border of his tribe, and let him depart in peace."
When the Doctor came and reported to me this conversation, I felt that now at last we had found what Diogenes looked for with his lantern — a man! (I was ready to forget how he took advantage of us in the contract at Nukhl, and to think only of the present display of virtue.) Here was an untutored child of nature, who had never felt the restraining influences of civilization, and who yet, out of the fountain of goodness within him, was imbued with the noblest sentiments that could inspire the human breast. If he was not a Christian, he was the highest type of Moslem, having the natural instincts of justice, with the added virtue of hospitality prescribed by his religion.
After this it was a little discouraging to hear the dragoman say that this same old sheikh was himself a notorious robber, and had helped himself to the property of others to such good purpose that he was now the possessor of two hundred camels! "Did you not see those camels on the hills as you approached the camp? They all belong to him, and are in great part spoil which he has thus obtained." I knew that the wealth of the desert was in camels. When a man has twenty or thirty, his great desire is more camels! He sells off some of the males, and keeps the females for breeding. If that does not supply him fast enough, he can replenish his herd by a judicious raid into the territory of his neighbor. But to think that
