At Other Times I Feigned To Go Aside To Answer A Call
Of Nature, And Then Couched Down, In The Arab Manner, Hidden Under My
Cloak.
This evening I had recourse to the last method; but having many
observations to note, I remained so long absent from my companions that
Ayd’s curiosity was roused.
He came to look after me, and perceiving me
immoveable on the spot, approached on tip-toe, and came close behind
[p.519] me without my perceiving him. I do not know how long he had
remained there, but suddenly lifting up my cloak, he detected me with
the book in my hand. “What is this?” he exclaimed. “What are you doing?
I shall not make you answerable for it at present, because I am your
companion; but I shall talk further to you about it when we are at the
convent.” I made no answer, till we returned to the halting-place, when
I requested him to tell me what further he had to say. “You write down
our country,” he replied, in a passionate tone, “our mountains, our
pasturing places, and the rain which falls from heaven; other people
have done this before you, but I at least will never become instrumental
to the ruin of my country.” I assured him that I had no bad intentions
towards the Bedouins, and told him he must be convinced that I liked
them too well for that; “on the contrary,” I added, “had I not
occasionally written down some prayers ever since we left Taba, we
should most certainly have been all killed; and it is very wrong in you
to accuse me of that, which if I had omitted, would have cost us our
lives.” He was startled at this reply, and seemed nearly satisfied.
“Perhaps you say the truth,” he observed; “but we all know that some
years since several men, God knows who they were, came to this country,
visited the mountains, wrote down every thing, stones, plants, animals,
even serpents and spiders, and since then little rain has fallen, and
the game has greatly decreased.” The same opinions prevail in these
mountains, which I have already mentioned to be current among the
Bedouins of Nubia; they believe that a sorcerer, by writing down certain
charms, can stop the rains and transfer them to his own country. The
travellers to whom Ayd alluded were M. Seetzen, who visited Mount Sinai
eight years since, and M. Agnelli, who ten years ago travelled for the
Emperor of Austria, collecting specimens
[p.520] of natural history, and who made some stay at Tor, from whence
he sent Arabs to hunt for all kinds of animals.
M. Seetzen traversed the peninsula in several directions, and followed a
part of the eastern gulf as far northward, I believe, as Noweyba. This
learned and indefatigable traveller made it a rule not to be intimidated
by the suspicions and prejudices of the Bedouins; beyond the Jordan, on
the shores of the Dead sea, in the desert of Tyh, in this peninsula, as
well as in Arabia, he openly followed his pursuits, never attempting to
hide his papers and pencils from the natives, but avowing his object to
be that of collecting precious herbs and curious stones, in the
character of a Christian physician in the Holy Land, and in that of a
Moslim physician in the Hedjaz.
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