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Oriental life encircled us, in the foreground of the picture a long row of waiting camels gaily saddled and tasselled, delicately nibbling bersim green as heaped emeralds donkeys white and gray, beribboned and beaded small yellow sandcarts; little white, desert horses and tall brown, desert men; camels snarling, donkeys braying, horses whinnying, and men touting.
She had written steadily for an hour, and now she raised her head to look out on the swift-flowing, muddy water, where broad khiassas floated down the stream, laden with bersim; where feluccas covered the river, bearing natives and donkeys; where faithful Moslems performed their ablutions, and other faithful Moslems, their sandals laid aside, said their prayers with their faces towards Mecca, oblivious of all around; where blue-robed women filled their goolahs with water, and bore them away, steady and stately; where a gang of conscripts, chained ankle to ankle, followed by a crowd of weeping and wailing women, were being driven to the anchorage of the stern-wheeled transport-steamer.
Three camels crouched near, and beside them stood a Nubian lad singing to himself the song of the camel-driver: "Fleet is thy foot: thou shalt rest by the Etl tree; Water shalt thou drink from the blue-deep well; Allah send His gard'ner with the green bersim, For thy comfort, fleet one, by the Etl tree.
If any person other than Salih touches it, an incredible quantity of green cud is instantly let loose over their turbans; but at the approach of Salih it emits a purring noise, preens its head for the nose-strap ornamented with a bunch of palmlike plumes, and playfully pretends not to want the bersim which the little black Sphinx thrusts down its throat in handfuls.
Three camels crouched near, and beside them stood a Nubian lad singing to himself the song of the camel-driver: "Fleet is thy foot: thou shalt rest by the Etl tree; Water shalt thou drink from the blue-deep well; Allah send His gard'ner with the green bersim, For thy comfort, fleet one, by the Etl tree.
As we lingered over our chicken-salad, fruit, and cool drinks, and lazily watched our camels munching bersim, all our first enthusiasm for these interesting beasts streamed back. The ladies called them poor dears, and sweet things; and the men marvelled at their calm endurance, or the number of their leg-joints.
Had not Mahommed Seti looted all his life looted from his native village to the borders of Kordofan? Did he not take to foray as a wild ass to bersim? Moreover, as little Dicky Donovan said humorously yet shamelessly when he joined them at Korosko: "What should a native do but loot who came from Manfaloot?"
The usual patch round a well would include a few date-palms, perhaps an apricot tree, and an acre or two of Bersim, the clover of the country, and a kind of Lucerne. The groves of Khargeh produce great quantities of excellent dates, and a considerable trade is done with the Nile Valley in rush matting, made chiefly in the southern portion of the oasis, at Boulak and Beris.
Tangled it would seem inextricably with streams of traffic, surging both ways, moved the "ships of the desert," loaded with emerald-green bersim; long, lilting necks, and calm, mysterious eyes of camels high above the cloaked heads of striding Bedouins, heads of defiant Arab prisoners, chained and handcuffed to each other; heads of blue-eyed water buffaloes, and heads of trim white, tasselled donkeys.
She had written steadily for an hour, and now she raised her head to look out on the swift- flowing, muddy water, where broad khiassas floated down the stream, laden with bersim; where feluccas covered the river, bearing natives and donkeys; where faithful Moslems performed their ablutions, and other faithful Moslems, their sandals laid aside, said their prayers with their faces towards Mecca, oblivious of all around; where blue-robed women filled their goolahs with water, and bore them away, steady and stately; where a gang of conscripts, chained ankle to ankle, followed by a crowd of weeping and wailing women, were being driven to the anchorage of the stern-wheeled transport-steamer.
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