June 1st.—We rose before daylight, when the Djebalye made coffee, and
then told me, that he could not think of accompanying me for less than
sixty piastres. As the whole journey was to last only till the evening,
and I knew that for one piastre any of these Bedouins will run about the
mountains on messages for a
[p.606] whole day, I offered him three piastres, but he was inflexible,
and replied, that were it not for his friendship for Hamd, he would not
take less than a hundred piastres. I rose to eight piastres, but on his
smiling, and shrugging up his shoulders at this, I rose, and declared
that we would try our luck alone.
We took our guns and our provision sack, filled our water skin at a
neighbouring well, called Ain Rymm [Arabic], and began ascending the
mountain straight before us. I soon began to wish that I had come to
some terms with the Djebalye; we walked over sharp rocks without any
path, till we came to the almost perpendicular side of the upper Serbal,
which we ascended in a narrow difficult cleft. The day grew excessively
hot, not a breath of wind was stirring, and it took us four hours to
climb up to the lower summit of the mountain, where I arrived completely
exhausted.
