Our Bedouin Guides Had Here A Long Quarrel With The Malays.
The guides
had bargained in the market for two camels, to replace two that were
unfit to continue the journey; but not having money enough to
[P.311] pay for them, they required the assistance of the Malays, and
begged them to lend ten dollars, to be repaid at Medina. The Malays
refused, and being hardly pressed, endeavoured to engage my
interposition in their behalf; but the Bedouins forced the money from
them by the same means which I had employed on a former occasion: the
purse of a Malay, which had been concealed in a bag of rice, now came to
light; it probably contained three hundred dollars. The owner was so
much frightened by this discovery, and the apprehension that the Arabs
would murder him on the road for the sake of his money, that by way of
punishment for his avarice, they contrived to keep him in a constant
state of alarm till we arrived at Medina.
January 24th. We left the Souk-Es'-Szafra [During the night, a Kurd
courier, mounted upon a dromedary, escorted by several Bedouins, passed
through Szafra; he came from the head-quarters of Mohammed Aly, and was
the bearer of the intelligence of the capture of Tarabe to Tousoun
Pasha, at Medina] we passed the Omra thus far the road is paved in
several parts with large stones, particularly on the ascents. We passed
through valleys of firm sand, between irregular chains of low hills,
where some shrubs and stunted acacia-trees grow.
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