My dromedary utterly vanished. I looked round me, and saw
the glimmer of a light in the fort which I had lately passed, and I
began to work my way back in that direction. The violence of the
gale made it hard for me to force my way towards the west, but I
succeeded at last in regaining the fort. To this, as to the other
fort which I had passed, there was attached a cluster of huts, and
I soon found myself surrounded by a group of villainous, gloomy-
looking fellows. It was a horrid bore for me to have to swagger
and look big at a time when I felt so particularly small on account
of my tumble and my lost dromedary; but there was no help for it; I
had no Dthemetri now to "strike terror" for me. I knew hardly one
word of Arabic, but somehow or other I contrived to announce it as
my absolute will and pleasure that these fellows should find me the
means of gaining Suez. They acceded, and having a donkey, they
saddled it for me, and appointed one of their number to attend me
on foot.
I afterwards found that these fellows were not Arabs, but Algerine
refugees, and that they bore the character of being sad scoundrels.
They justified this imputation to some extent on the following day.
They allowed Mysseri with my baggage and the camels to pass
unmolested, but an Arab lad belonging to the party happened to lag
a little way in the rear, and him (if they were not maligned) these
rascals stripped and robbed. Low indeed is the state of bandit
morality when men will allow the sleek traveller with well-laden
camels to pass in quiet, reserving their spirit of enterprise for
the tattered turban of a miserable boy.
I reached Suez at last. The British agent, though roused from his
midnight sleep, received me in his home with the utmost kindness
and hospitality. Oh! by Jove, how delightful it was to lie on fair
sheets, and to dally with sleep, and to wake, and to sleep, and to
wake once more, for the sake of sleeping again!
CHAPTER XXII - SUEZ
I was hospitably entertained by the British consul, or agent, as he
is there styled. He is the employe of the East India Company, and
not of the Home Government. Napoleon during his stay of five days
at Suez had been the guest of the consul's father, and I was told
that the divan in my apartment had been the bed of the great
commander.
There are two opinions as to the point at which the Israelites
passed the Red Sea.
