The
Moment I Had Taken My Seat The Chief Repeated His Salutations In
The Most Enthusiastic Manner, And Then The People Having Gathered
Densely About Me, Got Hold Of My Unresisting Hand And Passed It
Round Like A Claret Jug For The Benefit Of Every Body.
The women
soon brought me a wooden bowl full of buttermilk, and welcome
indeed came the gift to my hungry and thirsty soul.
After some time my party, as I had expected, came up, and when poor
Dthemetri saw me on my sheepskin, "the life and soul" of this
ragamuffin party, he was so astounded, that he even failed to check
his cry of horror; he plainly thought that now, at last, the Lord
had delivered me (interpreter and all) into the hands of the lowest
Philistines.
Mysseri carried a tobacco-pouch slung at his belt, and as soon as
its contents were known the whole population of the tent began
begging like spaniels for bits of the beloved weed. I concluded
from the abject manner of these people that they could not possibly
be thoroughbred Bedouins, and I saw, too, that they must be in the
very last stage of misery, for poor indeed is the man in these
climes who cannot command a pipeful of tobacco. I began to think
that I had fallen amongst thorough savages, and it seemed likely
enough that they would gain their very first knowledge of
civilisation by ravishing and studying the contents of my dearest
portmanteaus, but still my impression was that they would hardly
venture upon such an attempt.
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