[p.438] the advantage, therefore, of one days repose. I was now reduced
to that state which can alone ensure tranquillity to the traveller in
the desert; having nothing with me that could attract the notice or
excite the cupidity of the Bedouins; my clothes and linen were torn to
rags; a dirty Keffye, or yellow handkerchief, covered my head; my
leathern girdle and shoes had long been exchanged, by way of present,
against similar articles of an inferior kind, so that those I now wore
were of the very worst sort. The tube of my pipe was reduced from two
yards to a span, for I had been obliged to cut off from it as much as
would make two pipes for my friends at Kerek; and the last article of my
baggage, a pocket handkerchief, had fallen to the lot of the Sheikh of
Eldjy. Having thus nothing more to give, I expected to be freed from all
further demands: but I was mistaken: I had forgotten some rags torn from
my shirt, which were tied round my ancles, wounded by the stirrups which
I had received in exchange from the Sheikh of Kerek. These rags
happening to be of white linen, some of the ladies of the Howeytat
thought they might serve to make a Berkoa (Arabic), or face veil, and
whenever I stepped out of the tent I found myself surrounded by half a
dozen of them, begging for the rags. In vain I represented that they
were absolutely necessary to me in the wounded state of my ancles: their
answer was, you will soon reach Cairo, where you may get as much linen
as you like. By thus incessantly teazing me they at last obtained their
wishes; but in my anger I gave the rags to an ugly old woman, to the no
slight disappointment of the young ones.
August 26th.We broke up in the morning, our caravan consisting of nine
persons, including myself, and of about twenty camels, part of which
were for sale at Cairo; with the rest the Arabs expected to be able to
transport, on their return home, some provisions and army-baggage to
Akaba, where Mohammed Ali Pasha