DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12664#0111
104
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
there was no bush to hide behind. I almost
blushed at myself for thinking of dodging three
Arabs, when I had a double-barrelled gun in my
hand, and a pair of pistols in my sash ; but I must
say I was not at all sorry, before I met them again,
to hear Paul shouting to me, and a moment after
to see my boat coming up under full sail.
One who has never met an Arab in the desert
can have no conception of his terrible appearance.
The worst pictures of the Italian bandits or Greek
mountain robbers I ever saw, are tame in com-
parison. I have seen the celebrated Gasperini,
who ten years ago kept in terror the whole country
between Rome and Naples, and who was so strong
as to negotiate and make a treaty with the pope.
I saw him surrounded by nearly twenty of his
comrades ; and when he told me he could not re-
member how many murders he had committed, he
looked civil and harmless compared with a Be-
douin of the desert. The swarthy complexion of
the latter, his long beard, his piercing coal-black
eyes, half-naked figure, an enormous sword slung
over his back, and a rusty matchlock in his hand,
make the best figure for a painter I ever saw—
but happily he is not so bad as he looks to be.
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
there was no bush to hide behind. I almost
blushed at myself for thinking of dodging three
Arabs, when I had a double-barrelled gun in my
hand, and a pair of pistols in my sash ; but I must
say I was not at all sorry, before I met them again,
to hear Paul shouting to me, and a moment after
to see my boat coming up under full sail.
One who has never met an Arab in the desert
can have no conception of his terrible appearance.
The worst pictures of the Italian bandits or Greek
mountain robbers I ever saw, are tame in com-
parison. I have seen the celebrated Gasperini,
who ten years ago kept in terror the whole country
between Rome and Naples, and who was so strong
as to negotiate and make a treaty with the pope.
I saw him surrounded by nearly twenty of his
comrades ; and when he told me he could not re-
member how many murders he had committed, he
looked civil and harmless compared with a Be-
douin of the desert. The swarthy complexion of
the latter, his long beard, his piercing coal-black
eyes, half-naked figure, an enormous sword slung
over his back, and a rusty matchlock in his hand,
make the best figure for a painter I ever saw—
but happily he is not so bad as he looks to be.