My Wife Picked Up The Sword, As I Had No Time
To Stoop, And She Stood Well At Bay With Her Newly-Acquired Weapon That
A Disarmed Arab Wished To Wrest From Her, But Dared Not Close With The
Naked Blade.
I had had the fight all my own way, as, being beneath the
tree (the boughs of which were very near the ground), the Arabs, who do
not understand the use of the point, were unable to use their swords, as
their intended cuts were intercepted by the branches.
Vigorous thrusting
and straight hitting cleared the tree, and the party were scattered
right and left, followed up by Richarn and Achmet, armed with
double-barrelled rifles. I was determined to disarm the whole party, if
possible. One of the Arabs, armed with a lance, rushed up to attack
Richarn from behind; but Zeneb was of the warlike Dinka tribe, and
having armed herself with the hard wood handle of the axe, she went into
the row like "Joan of Arc," and hastening to the rescue of Richarn, she
gave the Arab such a whack upon the head that she knocked him down on
the spot, and seizing his lance she disarmed him. Thus armed, she rushed
into the thickest of the fray.
"Bravo, Zeneb!" I could not help shouting. Seizing a thick. stick that
had been dropped by one of the Arabs, I called Richarn and our little
party together, and attacking the few Arabs who still offered
resistance, they were immediately knocked down and disarmed. The leader
of the party, who had been the first to draw his sword and had received
a mouthful of umbrella, had not moved from the spot where he fell, but
amused himself with coughing and spitting. I now ordered him to be
bound, and threatened to tie him to my camel's tail and lead him a
prisoner to the Governor of Souakim, unless he called all those of his
party who had run away. They were now standing at a distance in the
desert, and I insisted upon the delivery of their weapons. Being
thoroughly beaten and cowed, he conferred with those whom we had taken
prisoners, and the affair ended by all the arms being delivered up. We
counted six swords, eleven lances, and a heap of knives, the number of
which I forget.
I ordered the entire party to stand in a line; and I gave them their
choice, whether the ringleaders would receive a flogging from me, or
whether I should tie them to the tails of camels and lead them to the
Turkish Governor of Souakim? They immediately chose the former; and,
calling them from the rank, I ordered them to lie down on the ground to
receive punishment.
They submitted like dogs; Richarn and Achmet stood over them with their
whips, ready for the word. At this moment an old white-headed Arab of my
caravan came to me: kneeling down, he stroked my beard with his dirty
hands, and implored pardon for the offenders. Thoroughly understanding
the Arab character, I replied, "They are miserable sons of dogs, and
their swords are like the feathers of a fowl; they deserve flogging, but
when a white head asks for pardon, it should be granted. God is
merciful, and we are all his children." Thus was the affair ended to the
satisfaction of our side. I broke all the lances into fragments upon a
rock, - ordered Zeneb to make a fire with the wood of the handles, to
boil some coffee; and tying the swords into a bundle, we packed the
lance-heads and knives in a basket, with the understanding that they
should be delivered to their owners on our arrival at the last well,
after which point there would be water on the route every day. From that
place, there would be no fear of our camels being stolen, and of our
being deserted in the desert.
On arrival at the well a few days later, I delivered the weapons to
their owners as promised, they having followed our party. Souakim is
about 275 miles from the Nile at Berber. At Kokreb, about half-way, we
entered the chain of mountains that extends from Suez parallel with the
Red Sea to the south; many portions of this chain are four or five
thousand feet above the sea-level. The mountains were exceedingly
beautiful, their precipitous sides of barren rock exhibiting superb
strata of red and grey granite, with vast masses of exquisite red and
green porphyry. Many hills were of basalt, so black, that during an
entire day's journey the face of the country appeared like a vast desert
of coal, in broken hills and blocks strewed over the surface of the
ground. Kokreb was a lovely oasis beneath the high mountains, with a
forest of low mimosas in full leaf, and a stream running from the
mountains, the produce of a recent storm. Throughout this country there
are no rivers that should be noticed on a map, as the torrents are
merely the effects of violent storms, which, falling upon the mountains
several times during the rainy season from June to the end of August
tear their boisterous way along their stony course and dry up in a few
hours, becoming exhausted in the sand of the deserts. For some days our
course lay along a deep ravine between stupendous cliffs; this was the
bed of a torrent, that, after heavy storms, flowed through the
mountains, inclining to the east; in this were pools of most beautifully
clear water. In many places the nooks among the cliffs were fringed with
lovely green trees. It was extraordinary to observe the activity of the
camels in climbing the most difficult passes, and in picking their way
among the rocks and stones that obstructed the route. In many places
camels might be seen grazing upon the green mimosa bushes, that growing
among the rocks high upon the mountains had tempted the animals into
places that I should not have believed they could have reached.
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