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We found an interpreter among the tourists, and he talked with the Arabs, and pointing to the camel dad had ridden, which was stretched out on the sand like he was dead, he told dad the Arabs wanted him to pay for the camel he had ridden to death, and foundered by letting it drink a wagon load of water, and then entered in a race across the desert, and the interpreter said dad better pay, or they would kill him.
The little arabs looked askance at me and made me think of two wild animals that had been caught, and were intelligent enough to understand that they must be tamed. They were submissive, but made no false pretences of enjoying the prospect. "I shall keep a gad handy," said their father, with a significant nod at them.
This country swarmed with Arabs, and abounded in supplies: superb fat oxen were seven dollars each; large fowls were a penny; and eggs were at the rate of nine for a penny farthing. We arrived at a large village, Sherrem, on May 11, having marched 118 miles in a straight line along the course of the Rahad.
At that, sleep was no easy matter, for the women who had lost their men or their children in the day's massacre and battle made night hideous with their continued wailing and howling. Finally, however, Tarzan succeeded in silencing them, on the plea that their noise would attract the Arabs to their hiding-place, when all would be slaughtered.
I have no difficulty in believing that the Phoenicians and Carthaginians were capable of making the voyage. They were followed to West Africa in early days, according to El-Idrisi and Ibn. el-Wardi, by the Arabs. It is told with a thousand variants, and ignored by the learned Fructuoso. The historian Antonio Galvao fixes upon September 1344, the date generally accepted.
Then came strange, gigantic lions with human heads, that had been placed by the old Assyrian king to guard the entrances to his court. What was the amazement of the Arabs and Turks cannot be told. First, the head was uncovered. It stood out from the earth, placid and vast. Hear Layard tell the story. He had been away to visit a neighboring chief:
Under the Caliph Omar, the Arabs had become a religious-political community of warriors, whose mission it was to conquer and plunder all civilised and cultured lands and to unfurl the banner of the crescent. They believed that "Paradise is under the shadow of the sword."
To prevent the bordj falling into the hands of the Arabs if the gate were blown down, Stephen and his small force built up at the further corner of the yard, in front of the dining-room door, a barrier of mangers, barrels, wooden troughs, iron bedsteads and mattresses from the guest-rooms.
The information was telegraphed to the Sirdar, who at once ordered that a force of the friendly Arabs, escorted by a gunboat, should go up to Berber to find if the news was true. One gunboat had already arrived, and General Hunter decided on going up in her himself. Two hundred of the Arabs, under Ahmed Bey, were to ride along the bank.
We were not the only travellers in misfortune here, for Masudi, with several other Arabs, all formed in one large caravan, had arrived at Mchimeka's, and could not advance for want of men.
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