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EOTUEN;, OR, TRACES OF TRAVEL BROUGHT HOME. FROM THE. EAST.
|" therefore, I was anxious to dart forward, and an-
oe ae
‘nihilate at once the whole space that divided me
from the Red Sea. . Dthemetri, however, could
not get on at all; every attempt which he made
to trot seemed to threaten the utter dislocation
of his whole frame; and indeed I doubt whether
any one of Dthemetri’s age (nearly forty, I think),
and unaccustomed to such exercise, could have
borne it at all easily; besides, the dromedary
which fell to his lot was evidently a very bad one;
"he every now and then came to a dead stop, and
coolly knelt down, as though suggesting that the
tider had better get off at once, and abandon the
ettempt as one that was utterly hopeless.
} When for the third or fourth time I saw Dthe-
metri thus planted, I lost my patience and went
on without him. For about two hours, I think,
I advanced without once looking behind me...I
then paused, and cast my eyes back to the west-
ern horizon. ‘There was no sign of Dthemetri,
or of any other living creature. This I expected,
(for I knew. that I must have far out-distanced all
jmy followers. I had ridden away from my par-
. ity merely by way. of gratifying my impatience,
and with the intention of stopping as soon as I
felt tired, until Iwas overtaken. I now observed,
however (which I had not been able to do while
advancing so rapidly), that the track which I had
deen following was seemingly the track of only
pne or two camels, I did not fear that I had
diverged very largely from the true route, but still
I could not feel any reasonable certainty that my
party would follow any line of march within sight
of me.
| I had to consider, therefore, whether I should
yemain where I was, upon the chance of seeing
ny people come up, or whether I would push on
ilone and find my way to Suez. I had now learn-
éd that I could not rely upon the continued guid-
ence of any track; but I knew that (if maps
yere right) the point for which I was bound bore
Just due east of Cairo,-and I thought that al-
though I might miss the line leading most di-
rectly to Suez, I could not well fail to find my
yay sooner or later to the Red Sea. _ The worst
of it was that I had no provision of food or wa-
ter with me, and already I was beginning to feel
thirst. I deliberated for,a minute, and then de-
termined that I would abandon all hope of seeing
my party again in the desert, and would push for-
ward as rapidly as possible toward Suez. _
It was not, I confess, without a sensation of
awe that I swept with my sight the vacant round
of the horizon, and remembered that I was all
abne and unprovisioned in the midst of the arid
waste; but this very awe gave tone and zest to
the exultation with which I felt myself launched.
Hitherto, in all my wanderings I had been under
the care of other people—sailors, Tatars, guides,
and dragomen had watched over my welfare;
bat now at last I was here in this African desert,
and I myself, and no other, had charge of my
life.. I liked the office well; I had the greatest
part of the day before me, a very fair dromedary,
a fur pelisse, and a brace of pistols, but no bread
and no water; for that I must ride, and ride I
id . ‘
For several hours I urged forward my beast at
a rapid though steady pace, but now the pangs
of thirst began to torment me. I did not relax
my pace, however, and I had not suffered long,
when a moving object appeared in the distance
before me. The intervening space was soon tray-
ersed, and I found myself approaching a Bedouin
Arab mounted on a camel, attended by another
Bedouin on foot. hey stopped. I saw that,
as usual, there hung from the pack-saddle of the
camel a large skin water-flask which seemed to
be well-filled; I steered my dromedary close up
alongside of the mounted Bedouin, caused my
beast to kneel down, then alighted, and keeping
the end of the halter in my hand, went up to the
mounted Bedouin without speaking, took hold of
his water-flask, opened it, and drank long and
deep from its leathern lips. Both of the Bed-
ouins stood fast in amazement and mute horror ;
and really, if they had never happened to see a
European before, the apparition was enough to
startle them. ‘To sce for the first time a coat
anda waistcoat, with the pale semblance of a
human head at the top, and for this ghastly figure
to come swiftly out of the horizon upon a fleet
dromedary—approach them silently, and with a
demoniacal smile, and drink a deep draught from
their water-flask—this was enough to make the
Bedouins stare a little: they, in fact, stared a
great deal—not as Europeans stare, with a rest-
less and puzzled expression of countenance, but
with features all fixed and rigid, and with still,
glassy eyes. Before they had time to, get de-
composed from their state of petrifaction, I had
remounted my dromedary and was darting away
toward the east.
Without pause or remission of pace I contin-
ued to press forward; but after awhile I found,
to my confusion, that the slight track which had
hitherto guided me now failed altogether. .I.be-
gan to fear.that I must have been all along fol-
lowing the course of some wandering Bedouins,
and I felt that if this were the case my fate was
a little uncertain. To comfort. myself, I began
to nurse up a theory that death by thirst was
not so terrible as inexperienced people were apt
to imagine. (Say what you will, there is com-
fort in theories: some of the repudiating Amer-
icans of the United States entertain a theory that
they are distinguishable from common swindlers,
and the national pride of the ‘* Young Republic”
is wholly supported by the indulgence of this sin-
gular fancy.) .
I had no compass with me, but I determined
upon the eastern point of the horizon as accu-
rately as I could, by reference to the sun, and so
laid, down for myself a way over the pathless
sands,
But now my poor dromedary, by whose life
and strength I held my own, she began to show
signs of distress; a thick, clammy, and glutinous
kind of foam gathered about her lips, and piteous
sobs burst from her bosom in the tones of hu-
man misery: I doubted for a moment whether I
would give her a little rest.or relaxation of pace,
but I decided that I would not, and continued to
push forward as steadily as before.
The character of the country became changed ;
I had ridden away from the level tracts, and be-
fore me now, and on either side, there were vast
hills of sand and calcined rocks, that interrupted
my progress and baffled. my doubtful road, but I
did my best: with rapid steps I swept round the
base of the hills, threaded the winding hollows,
and at last, as I rose in my swift course to the
crest of a lofty ridge—Thalatta! Thalatta!. by
Jove! I saw the sea! ‘ .
My tongue can tell where to find the clue to
many an old pagan creed, because that (distinctly
from all mere admiration of the beauty belonging
to Nature’s works) I acknowledge a sense of mys-
tical reverence, when first I. look to see some
illustrious feature of the globe—some coast-line
of ocean—some mighty river or dreary mountain-
range, the ancient barrier of kingdoms, But the
Red Sea! It might well claim my earnest gaze
by force of the great Jewish migration which
connects it with the history of our own religion.
From this very ridge, it is likely enough, the
panting Israelites first saw that shining inlet of
the sea, Ay! ay! 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 fly-
ing from Pharaoh’s police.
I had not yet been able to discover any symp-
toms of Suez, but after awhile I descried in the
distance a large, blank, isolated building, Imade
toward 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 | b
even begun to subside I was pursuing my on-
33
ward 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. . This
guide I found in the most fickle and uncertain
of the elements. For some hours the wind had
been freshening, and it now blew a violent gale;
it blew not fitfully and in squalls, but with such re-
markable steadiness that I felt convinced it would
come from the same quarter for several hours.
When the sun set, therefore, I carefully looked
for the point from which the wind was blowing,
and found that it came from the very west, and
was blowing exactly in the direction of my route.
I had nothing to do, therefore, but to go straight
to leeward; and this was not difficult, for. the
gale blew with such immense force that if I di-
verged at all from its line, I instantly felt the
pressure of the blast on the side toward which
I was deviating... Very soon after sunset there
came on complete darkness, but the strong wind
guided me well, and sped me, too, on my way.
Thad pushed on for about, I think, a couple of
hours after nightfall, when I saw the glimmer of
a light in the distance, and this I. ventured to
hope must be Suez. Upon approaching it, how-
ever, I found that it was only a solitary fort, and
I passed on without stopping. a
On I went, still riding down the wind, when an
unlucky accident occurred, for which, if you like,
you can have yourlaugh againstme. I have told
you already what sort of lodging it is which you
have upon the back of a camel. You ride the
dromedary in the same fashion; you are perched
rather than scated upon a. bunch of carpets or
quilts upon the summit of the hump. It hap-
pened that my dromedary veered rather sudden-
ly from her onward course; meeting the move-
ment, I mechanically turned my left wrist as
though I were holding a bridle-rein, for the com-
plete darkness prevented my eyes from reminding
me that I had nothing but a halter in my. hand:
the expected resistance failed, for the halter was
hanging upon that side of the dromedary’s neck
toward which I was slightly leaning. TI toppled
over, head-foremost, and then went falling and
falling through air till my crown came whang
against the ground. And the ground, too, was
perfectly hard (compacted sand), but the thickly
wadded head-gear which I wore for protection
against the sun saved my life. The notion of
my being able to get up again after falling head-
foremost from such an immense height seemed
to me at first too paradoxical to be acted upon,
but I soon found that I was not a bit hurt. ~My
dromedary utterly vanished; I looked round me
and saw the glimmer of a light in the fort which
Thad lately passed, and I began to work my way
back in that direction.. The violence of the gale
made it hard for me to force my way toward the
west, but I succeeded at last in regaining the fort.
To this, as to the other fort which I had passed,
there was attached a cluster of huts, and I soon
found myself surrounded by a group of villanous,
gloomy-looking fellows.’ It was a horrid bore for
me to have to swagger and look big at a time
when I felt so particularly small on account of
my tumble, and my lost dromedary, but there was
no help for it; I had no Dthemetri now to * strike
terror” for me.- I knew hardly one word of Ar-
abic, but somehow or other I contrived to an-
nounce it as my absolute will and pleasure that
these fellows should find me the means of gain-
ing Suez... They acceded, and having a donkey,
they saddled it for me, and appointed one of their
number to attend me on foot.
I afterward found that these fellows were not
Arabs, but Algerine refugees, and that they bore
the character of being sad scoundrels. They jus-
tified this imputation to some extent on the fol-
lowing day. They allowed Mysseri, with my
baggage and the camels, to pass unmolested, but
an Arab lad belonging to the. party happened to
lag a little way in the rear, and him (if they were
not maligned) these rascals stripped and robbed.
Low indeed is the state of bandit morality, when
men will allow the sleek traveller with well-laden
camels to pass in quiet, reserving their spirit of
enterprise for the tattered turban of a miserable
oy.
I reached Suez at last, The British agent,