“Well,” cried the Egyptian, “what have ye gained by halting? We have
been quiet here, praying and smoking for the last hour!” “Go, eat thy
buried beans,[FN#5]” we replied. “What does an Egyptian boor know of
manliness!” The surly donkey-boy was worked up into a paroxysm of passion
by such small jokes as telling him to convey our salams to the Governor
of Jeddah, and by calling the asses after the name of his tribe. He
replied by “foul, unmannered, scurril taunts,” which only drew forth fresh
derision, and the coffee-house keeper laughed consumedly,
[p.265] having probably seldom entertained such “funny gentlemen.”
Shortly after leaving the Kahwat Turki we found the last spur of the
highlands that sink into the Jeddah Plain. This view would for some
time be my last of
“Infamous hills, and sandy, perilous wilds;”
and I contemplated it with the pleasure of one escaping from it. Before
us lay the usual iron flat of these regions, whitish with salt, and
tawny with stones and gravel; but relieved and beautified by the
distant white walls, whose canopy was the lovely blue sea. Not a tree,
not a patch of verdure was in sight ; nothing distracted our attention
from the sheet of turquoises in the distance. Merrily the little
donkeys hobbled on, in spite of their fatigue.
