DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12664#0261
248
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
sands of years, had cracked and fallen. My days
in the desert did not pass as quickly as I hurry-
through them here. They wore away, not slowly
alone, but sometimes heavily ; and, to help them in
their progress, 1 sometimes descended to very com-
monplace amusements. On one occasion, I re-
member, meeting a party of friendly Bedouins, and.
sitting down with them to pipes and coffee, I no-
ticed a fine lad of nineteen or twenty, about the
size of one of my party, and pitted mine against
him for a wrestling-match. The old Bedouins
toot the precaution to remove their knives and
swords, and it was well they did, for the two lads
throttled each other like young furies ; and when
mine received a pretty severe prostration on the
sand, he first attempted to regain his sword, and,
failing in that, sprang again upon his adversary
with such ferocity that 1 was glad to have the
young devils taken apart, and still more glad to
know that they were going to travel different
roads.
Several times we passed the rude burying-
grounds of the Bedouins, standing alone in the
■waste of sand, a few stones thrown together in a
heap marking the spot where an Arab's bones re-
posed ; but the wanderer of the desert looks for-
ward to his final rest in this wild burying-place of
his tribe, with the same feeling that animates the
English peasant towards the churchyard of his na-
tive village, or the noble peer towards the honoured
tomb of his ancestors.
About noon we came to an irregular stone fencer,
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
sands of years, had cracked and fallen. My days
in the desert did not pass as quickly as I hurry-
through them here. They wore away, not slowly
alone, but sometimes heavily ; and, to help them in
their progress, 1 sometimes descended to very com-
monplace amusements. On one occasion, I re-
member, meeting a party of friendly Bedouins, and.
sitting down with them to pipes and coffee, I no-
ticed a fine lad of nineteen or twenty, about the
size of one of my party, and pitted mine against
him for a wrestling-match. The old Bedouins
toot the precaution to remove their knives and
swords, and it was well they did, for the two lads
throttled each other like young furies ; and when
mine received a pretty severe prostration on the
sand, he first attempted to regain his sword, and,
failing in that, sprang again upon his adversary
with such ferocity that 1 was glad to have the
young devils taken apart, and still more glad to
know that they were going to travel different
roads.
Several times we passed the rude burying-
grounds of the Bedouins, standing alone in the
■waste of sand, a few stones thrown together in a
heap marking the spot where an Arab's bones re-
posed ; but the wanderer of the desert looks for-
ward to his final rest in this wild burying-place of
his tribe, with the same feeling that animates the
English peasant towards the churchyard of his na-
tive village, or the noble peer towards the honoured
tomb of his ancestors.
About noon we came to an irregular stone fencer,