But moreover, and
best of all, that beckoning sea assured my eyes, and proved how
well I had marked out the east for my path, and gave me good
promise that sooner or later the time would come for me to rest and
drink.
It was distant, the sea, but I felt my own strength, and I
had HEARD of the strength of dromedaries. I pushed forward as
eagerly as though I had spoiled the Egyptians and were flying from
Pharaoh's police.
I had not yet been able to discover any symptoms of Suez, but after
a while I descried in the distance a large, blank, isolated
building. I made towards this, and in time got down to it. The
building was a fort, and had been built there for the protection of
a well which it contained within its precincts. A cluster of small
huts adhered to the fort, and in a short time I was receiving the
hospitality of the inhabitants, who were grouped upon the sands
near their hamlet. To quench the fires of my throat with about a
gallon of muddy water, and to swallow a little of the food placed
before me, was the work of few minutes, and before the astonishment
of my hosts had even begun to subside, I was pursuing my onward
journey. Suez, I found, was still three hours distant, and the sun
going down in the west warned me that I must find some other guide
to keep me in the right direction.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 248 of 325
Words from 68246 to 68500
of 89094
