Reaching At Last Some High Ground I Could
See, And See With Delight, The Fire Of Our Small Encampment, And
When At Last I Regained The Spot It Seemed To Me A Very Home That
Had Sprung Up For Me In The Midst Of These Solitudes.
My Arabs
were busy with their bread; Mysseri rattling tea-cups; the little
kettle, with her odd old-maidish
Looks, sat humming away old songs
about England; and two or three yards from the fire my tent stood
prim and tight, with open portal, and with welcoming look, like
"the old arm-chair" of our lyrist's "sweet Lady Anne."
At the beginning of my journey the night breeze blew coldly; when
that happened, the dry sand was heaped up outside round the skirts
of the tent, and so the wind, that everywhere else could sweep as
he listed along those dreary plains, was forced to turn aside in
his course and make way, as he ought, for the Englishman. Then
within my tent there were heaps of luxuries - dining-rooms,
dressing-rooms, libraries, bedrooms, drawing-rooms, oratories, all
crowded into the space of a hearthrug. The first night, I
remember, with my books and maps about me, I wanted light; they
brought me a taper, and immediately from out of the silent Desert
there rushed in a flood of life unseen before. Monsters of moths,
of all shapes and hues, that never before perhaps had looked upon
the shining of a flame, now madly thronged into my tent, and dashed
through the fire of the candle till they fairly extinguished it
with their burning limbs. Those who had failed in attaining this
martyrdom suddenly became serious, and clung despondingly to the
canvas.
By-and-by there was brought to me the fragrant tea and big masses
of scorched and scorching toast, and the butter that had come all
the way to me in this Desert of Asia from out of that poor, dear,
starving Ireland. I feasted like a king, like four kings, like a
boy in the fourth form.
When the cold, sullen morning dawned, and my people began to load
the camels, I always felt loth to give back to the waste this
little spot of ground that had glowed for a while with the
cheerfulness of a human dwelling. One by one the cloaks, the
saddles, the baggage, the hundred things that strewed the ground
and made it look so familiar - all these were taken away and laid
upon the camels. A speck in the broad tracts of Asia remained
still impressed with the mark of patent portmanteaus and the heels
of London boots; the embers of the fire lay black and cold upon the
sand, and these were the signs we left.
My tent was spared to the last, but when all else was ready for the
start then came its fall; the pegs were drawn, the canvas shivered,
and in less than a minute there was nothing that remained of my
genial home but only a pole and a bundle. The encroaching
Englishman was off, and instant upon the fall of the canvas, like
an owner who had waited and watched, the genius of the Desert
stalked in.
To servants, as I suppose of any other Europeans not much
accustomed to amuse themselves by fancy or memory, it often happens
that after a few days journeying the loneliness of the Desert will
become frightfully oppressive. Upon my poor fellows the access of
melancholy came heavy, and all at once, as a blow from above; they
bent their necks, and bore it as best they could, but their joy was
great on the fifth day when we came to an oasis called Gatieh, for
here we found encamped a caravan (that is, an assemblage of
travellers) from Cairo. The Orientals living in cities never pass
the Desert except in this way; many will wait for weeks, and even
for months, until a sufficient number of persons can be found ready
to undertake the journey at the same time - until the flock of sheep
is big enough to fancy itself a match for wolves. They could not,
I think, really secure themselves against any serious danger by
this contrivance, for though they have arms, they are so little
accustomed to use them, and so utterly unorganised, that they never
could make good their resistance to robbers of the slightest
respectability. It is not of the Bedouins that such travellers are
afraid, for the safe conduct granted by the chief of the ruling
tribe is never, I believe, violated, but it is said that there are
deserters and scamps of various sorts who hover about the skirts of
the Desert, particularly on the Cairo side, and are anxious to
succeed to the property of any poor devils whom they may find more
weak and defenceless than themselves.
These people from Cairo professed to be amazed at the ludicrous
disproportion between their numerical forces and mine. They could
not understand, and they wanted to know, by what strange privilege
it is that an Englishman with a brace of pistols and a couple of
servants rides safely across the Desert, whilst they, the natives
of the neighbouring cities, are forced to travel in troops, or
rather in herds. One of them got a few minutes of private
conversation with Dthemetri, and ventured to ask him anxiously
whether the English did not travel under the protection of evil
demons. I had previously known (from Methley, I think, who had
travelled in Persia) that this notion, so conducive to the safety
of our countrymen, is generally prevalent amongst Orientals. It
owes its origin, partly to the strong wilfulness of the English
gentleman (which not being backed by any visible authority, either
civil or military, seems perfectly superhuman to the soft Asiatic),
but partly too to the magic of the banking system, by force of
which the wealthy traveller will make all his journeys without
carrying a handful of coin, and yet when he arrives at a city will
rain down showers of gold.
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