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Tradition has it that many adventurers of olden time had perished in the search. The story goes also that within men's memory two wandering sailors Americanos, perhaps, but gringos of some sort for certain talked over a gambling, good-for-nothing mozo, and the three stole a donkey to carry for them a bundle of dry sticks, a water-skin, and provisions enough to last a few days.
There was a little spring not far off, from which we obtained sufficient water to drink, the river being too muddy. The spring was but a thread oozing from the soil; but the Hadji collected it in handfuls, which he emptied into his water-skin, and then brought to us. The morning light gave a still finer effect to the manifold forms of the mountains than that of the afternoon sun.
I was parched, and my water-skin was gone, probably thrown away in a fit of frenzy or despair I could not remember. The horses, mere wrecks of what they had been, were munching the last of a small patch of t'samma; and I was barely in time to rescue a couple of still eatable ones, to moisten my parched tongue.
I will go forward to the river, and see that the boat is ready and that our friends are prepared for us. I shall come back after dark." They gathered the stones quickly and made a low wall about a foot high; within this wall Feversham and Trench laid themselves down upon the ground with a water-skin and their rifles at their sides. "You have dates, too," said Abou Fatma. "Yes."
"They seek not water, for they seldom drink, but if it comes in their way they may do so; moreover, they will be likely to trample the pool into mud to cool their hooves. Luckily our water-skin is full, and the horses have drunk well; but I fear what the morning will show." All night we could hear the buck moving about and passing through there must have been thousands of them.
Between here and there I know that I shall not be thirsty." And that in a tone, in which for the first time he allowed the authority of a Captain to speak. "That is easy to say," I thought, ill-humoredly. "He knows that when he wants them, my water-skin, and Bou-Djema's, are at his service."
Because this water-skin was soft and flexible, it could not stand on the ground, and they hung it up, sometimes on the limb of a tree, more often on one of the poles of the lodge, or sometimes on a tripod three sticks coming together at the top and standing spread out at the ground.
Early one morning, about fifty miles out of Jeddah, I boarded a becalmed dhow and found them with the dregs of one empty water-skin between a dozen men. Not content with putting to sea with a single mussick of water, they had hove to and slept all night, and so dropped the night breeze, which would have carried them to Jeddah before it died down.
"Dost thou know," continued Sadi, "that Yusef rides the best camel in the caravan, and has the fullest water-skin, and has shawls and merchandise with him?" The leader cast a covetous glance toward the poor Syrian traveler, who was generally called the hakeem because of the medicines which he gave, and the many cures which he wrought.
The carpet would be spread under a shady tree; upon a branch of this his water-skin should be suspended, and the day's work over, he can write up his journal and enjoy his pipe while coffee is being prepared.
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