The Man Carried A Matchlock, Of Which He Was Very Proud.
We Stopped And Sat Down And Rested Awhile For The Sake Of A Little
Talk.
There was much that I should have liked to ask this man, but
he could not understand Dthemetri's language, and the process of
getting at his knowledge by double interpretation through my Arabs
was unsatisfactory.
I discovered, however (and my Arabs knew of
that fact), that this man and his family lived habitually for nine
months of the year without touching or seeing either bread or
water. The stunted shrub growing at intervals through the sand in
this part of the Desert enables the camel mares to yield a little
milk, which furnishes the sole food and drink of their owner and
his people. During the other three months (the hottest of the
months, I suppose) even this resource fails, and then the Sheik and
his people are forced to pass into another district. You would ask
me why the man should not remain always in that district which
supplies him with water during three months of the year, but I
don't know enough of Arab politics to answer the question. The
Sheik was not a good specimen of the effect produced by the diet to
which he is subjected. He was very small, very spare, and sadly
shrivelled, a poor, over-roasted snipe, a mere cinder of a man. I
made him sit down by my side, and gave him a piece of bread and a
cup of water from out of my goat-skins.
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