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At this point we had the first of many quarrels with our camel-men; we insisted on being taken two miles farther on, away from the smells; nothing short of threats of returning and getting the sultan to beat them and put them in prison enabled us to break through the conventional Arab custom of encamping for the first night outside the city gates.
We encamped in a cattle-pen, the camel-men making themselves a capital house with floors, walls, and sides of the thick mats of the camels. These mats are really like hard mattresses, nearly 1 inch thick, and very stiff, about 1 yard long by 2 feet wide. We always tried to encamp in a field if we could, as then we were sure of some earth for the tent-pegs.
So they imagined, but the exasperated ladies who were continually coming to complain that a sportsman in a blue galabeah was rifling their orchards evidently thought otherwise. All the camel-men had the predatory instinct strongly developed, and they were adepts at concealing the "evidence," which sometimes was very much more than fruit or eggs.
However, I stood by the date and rice bags with my gun, and prevented anybody coming near me. The prince and camel-men now seeing me determined, and no farther discomposed by their manoeuvres, came supplicating for their daily rations. This stirred my blood; I took back what I had given, and resolutely declined to be passively cajoled out of anything, let happen what may.
It proved to be a new species; and Dr. Gunther named it Zamenis elegantissimus. It was also snow-white, and on the right of the path lay black heaps, Hawawit, "ruins" not worth the delay of a visit. Then began a short up-slope with a longer counterslope, on which we met a party of Huwaytat, camel-men and foot-men going to buy grain at El-Wigh.
One of Lieutenant Speke's discharged camel-men, a Warsingali, being refused passage by the Habr Gerhajis, on account of some previous quarrel, found a stray camel, and carried it off to his home amongst the Dulbahantas. He afterwards appeared at Las Kuray, having taken the road by which the travellers entered the country.
At night they went on till late, as before; but the camel-men said that the animals must have a longer rest. Luckily it did not matter now if they were caught. If Manöel and Ourïeda had escaped they had had a long start. A little after midnight the vast silence of the sand-ocean was broken with cries and shoutings of men.
The sky was milk the desert, honey far off Cairo with its crowned citadel, pale opal veined with light, and faintly streaked with misty greens and purples; the cultivated land a deep indigo sea. On the fringe of the oasis-garden the cafes and curiosity-shops buzzed with life, and glittered like lighted beehives. Outside the gateway, donkey-boys and camel-men and drivers of sandcarts chattered.
There were trees and very fantastic peaky rocks against the sky, and a great step about 3 feet high, which had once been a wave of basalt, black on the yellow sand. The camel-men used to spread their beds and light their fire on this sort of stage by night, but they spent the day under the trees.
We found out later that the rifles and ammunition we had delivered on the beach some distance south of Jeddah to the Sharif's agents in support of this attack had been partly diverted to Mecca and partly hung up by a squabble with their own camel-men for more cash.
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