The Well Was At Least Two Miles
Distant, And Not A Hovel Was In Sight; A Few Badawi Children Belonging
To An Outcast Tribe Fed Their Starveling Goats Upon The Hills.
This
place is called "Suwaykah"; it is, I was told, that celebrated in the
history of the Arabs.[FN#12] Yet not for this reason did my comrades
look lovingly upon its horrors:
Their boxes were safe and with the eye
of imagination they could now behold their homes. That night we must
have travelled about twenty-two miles; the direction of the road was
due East, and the only remarkable feature in the ground was its steady
rise.
[p.276] We pitched the tent under a villainous Mimosa, the tree whose
shade is compared by poetic Badawin to the false friend who deserts you
in your utmost need. I enlivened the hot dull day by a final affair
with Sa'ad the Demon. His alacrity at Yambu' obtained for him the loan
of a couple of dollars: he had bought grain at Al-Hamra, and now we
were near Al-Madinah: still there was not a word about repayment. And
knowing that an Oriental debtor discharges his debt as he pays his
rent, namely, with the greatest unwillingness,-and that, on the other
hand, an Oriental creditor will devote the labour of a year to
recovering a sixpence, I resolved to act as a native of the country,
placed in my position, would; and by dint of sheer dunning and
demanding pledges, to recover my property.
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