During The Ramazan I Laid In My Stores For The Journey.
These consisted
of tea, coffee, loaf-sugar, rice, dates, biscuit, oil, vinegar,
tobacco, lanterns, and cooking pots, a small
Bell-shaped tent, costing
twelve shillings, and three water-skins for the Desert.[FN#14] The
provisions were placed in a "Kafas" or hamper artistically made of palm
sticks, and in a huge Sahharah, or wooden box, about three feet each
way, covered with leather or skin, and provided with a small lid
fitting into the top.[FN#15] The
[p.126]former, together with my green box containing medicines, and
saddle-bags full of clothes, hung on one side of the camel, a
counterpoise to the big Sahharah on the other flank; the Badawin, like
muleteers, always requiring a balance of weight. On the top of the load
was placed transversely a Shibriyah or cot, on which Shaykh Nur
squatted like a large crow. This worthy had strutted out into the
streets armed with a pair of horse-pistols and a sword almost as long
as himself. No sooner did the mischievous boys of Cairo-they are as bad
as the gamins of Paris and London-catch sight of him than they began to
scream with laughter at the sight of the "Hindi (Indian) in arms,"
till, like a vagrant owl pursued by a flight of larks, he ran back into
the Caravanserai.
Having spent all my ready money at Cairo, I was obliged to renew the
supply. My native acquaintances advised me to take at least eighty
pounds sterling, and considering the expense of outfit for Desert
travelling, the sum did not appear excessive.
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