DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12664#0234
ENTRANCE UPON THE DESERT. 223
of the califs I found Paul with my caravan ; but I
had not yet escaped the stormy passions of men.
With the cries of the poor Arab still ringing in my
ears, I was greeted with a furious quarrel, arising
from the apportionment of the money I had paid
my guides. I was in no humour to interfere, and,
mounting my dromedary, and leaving Paul to ar-
range the affair with them as he best could, I rode
on alone. It was a journey of no ordinary inter-
est, on which I was now beginning my lonely way.
I had travelled in Italy, among the mountains of
Greece, the plains of Turkey, the wild steppes of
Russia, and the plains of Poland, but neither of
these afforded half the material for curious expec-
tation that my journey through the desert prom-
ised. After an interval of 4000 years, I was about
to pursue the devious path of the children of Is-
rael, when they took up the bones of Joseph and
fled before the anger of Pharaoh, among the moun-
tain passes of Sinai, and through that great and
terrible desert which shut them from the Land of
Promise. I rode on in silence and alone for nearly
two hours, and just as the sun was sinking behind
the dark mountains of Mokattam, halted to wait for
my little caravan; and I pitched my tent for the
first night in the desert, with the door opening to the
distant land of Goshen^
of the califs I found Paul with my caravan ; but I
had not yet escaped the stormy passions of men.
With the cries of the poor Arab still ringing in my
ears, I was greeted with a furious quarrel, arising
from the apportionment of the money I had paid
my guides. I was in no humour to interfere, and,
mounting my dromedary, and leaving Paul to ar-
range the affair with them as he best could, I rode
on alone. It was a journey of no ordinary inter-
est, on which I was now beginning my lonely way.
I had travelled in Italy, among the mountains of
Greece, the plains of Turkey, the wild steppes of
Russia, and the plains of Poland, but neither of
these afforded half the material for curious expec-
tation that my journey through the desert prom-
ised. After an interval of 4000 years, I was about
to pursue the devious path of the children of Is-
rael, when they took up the bones of Joseph and
fled before the anger of Pharaoh, among the moun-
tain passes of Sinai, and through that great and
terrible desert which shut them from the Land of
Promise. I rode on in silence and alone for nearly
two hours, and just as the sun was sinking behind
the dark mountains of Mokattam, halted to wait for
my little caravan; and I pitched my tent for the
first night in the desert, with the door opening to the
distant land of Goshen^