In The Bottom Of The Valley We Passed Two Rivulets, One Of Which Is Called Seil Megharye (Arabic), Where We Arrived At The End Of A Four Hours Walk, And Found Some Bedouin Women Washing Their Blue Gowns, And The Wide Shirts Of Their Husbands.

I had taken the lead of our party, accompanied by my guide’s little boy, with whom I reached an encampment, on the southern side of the valley, to which these women belonged.

This was the encampment to which my guide belonged, and where he assured me that I should find his camels. I was astonished to see nobody but women in the tents, but was told that the greater part of the men had gone to Ghaza to sell the soap-ashes which these Arabs collect in the mountains of Shera. The ladies being thus left to themselves, had no impediment to the satisfying of their curiosity, which was very great at seeing a townsman, and what was still more extraordinary, a man of Damascus (for so I was called), under their tents. They crowded about me, and were incessant in their inquiries respecting my affairs, the goods I had to sell, the dress of the town ladies, &c. &c. When they found that I had nothing to sell, nor any thing to present to them, they soon retired; they however informed me that my guide had no other camels in his possession than the one we had brought with us, which was already lame. He soon afterwards arrived, and when I began to expostulate with him on his

[p.412] conduct, he assured me that his camel would be able to carry us all the way to Egypt, but begged me to wait a few days longer, until he should be well enough to walk by its side; for, since we left Beszeyra he had been constantly complaining of rheumatic pains in his legs. I saw that all this was done to gain time, and to put me out of patience, in order to cheat me of the wages he had already received; but, as we were to proceed on the following day to another encampment at a few hours distance, I did not choose to say any thing more to him on the subject in a place where I had nobody but women to take my part; hoping to be able to attack him more effectually in the presence of his own tribe’smen.

August 15th.—We remained this day at the women’s tents, and I amused myself with visiting almost every tent in the encampment, these women being accustomed to receive strangers in the absence of their husbands. The Howeytat Arabs resemble the Egyptians in their features; they are much leaner and taller than the northern Arabs; the skin of many of them is almost black, and their features are much less regular than those of the northern Bedouins, especially the Aeneze. The women are tall and well made, but too lean; and even the handsomest among them are disfigured by broad cheek bones.

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