DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12664#0225
214
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
plenty of camels, and would conduct me without
•any reward, or I might give him what I pleased.
We parted without coming to an arrangement.
He offered to send one of his men to conduct me
from Mount Sinai to Akaba ; but as something
might occur to prevent my going, I would not take
him. He gave me, however, his signet, which he
told me every Bedouin on that route knew and
would respect, and writing his name under it ac-
cording to the sound, I repeated it over and over,
until I could pronounce it intelligibly, and treas-
ured it up as a pass-word for the desert.
The next morning, under pretence that I went to
see the starting of the great caravan of pilgrims
for Mecca, I rode out to the sheik, and telling him
that if I came to him I should come destitute of
every thing, and he must have some good tobacco
for me, I slipped a couple of gold pieces into his
hand, and without any further remark, left the
question of my going undetermined. It was worth
my ride to see the departure of the caravan. It
consisted of more than 30,000 pilgrims, who had
come from the shores of the Caspian, the extremi-
ties of Persia, and the confines of Africa ; and hav-
ing assembled, according to usage for hundreds of
years, at Cairo as a central point, the whole mass
was getting in motion for a pilgrimage of fifty
days, through dreary sands, to the tomb of the
Prophet.
Accustomed as I was to associate the idea of
order and decorum with the observance of all rites
and duties of religion, I could not but feel sur-
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
plenty of camels, and would conduct me without
•any reward, or I might give him what I pleased.
We parted without coming to an arrangement.
He offered to send one of his men to conduct me
from Mount Sinai to Akaba ; but as something
might occur to prevent my going, I would not take
him. He gave me, however, his signet, which he
told me every Bedouin on that route knew and
would respect, and writing his name under it ac-
cording to the sound, I repeated it over and over,
until I could pronounce it intelligibly, and treas-
ured it up as a pass-word for the desert.
The next morning, under pretence that I went to
see the starting of the great caravan of pilgrims
for Mecca, I rode out to the sheik, and telling him
that if I came to him I should come destitute of
every thing, and he must have some good tobacco
for me, I slipped a couple of gold pieces into his
hand, and without any further remark, left the
question of my going undetermined. It was worth
my ride to see the departure of the caravan. It
consisted of more than 30,000 pilgrims, who had
come from the shores of the Caspian, the extremi-
ties of Persia, and the confines of Africa ; and hav-
ing assembled, according to usage for hundreds of
years, at Cairo as a central point, the whole mass
was getting in motion for a pilgrimage of fifty
days, through dreary sands, to the tomb of the
Prophet.
Accustomed as I was to associate the idea of
order and decorum with the observance of all rites
and duties of religion, I could not but feel sur-