United States or Hungary ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Along the whole coast-line from Kosseir to Sawakin one may say that there are no permanent places of residence, if we except the tiny Egyptian military stations, with their fort and huts for the soldiers, at Halaib, Mohammed Gol, and Darour; it is practically desert all the way, and is only visited by the nomad Ababdeh and Bisharin tribes, when, after the rains, they can obtain there a scanty pasturage for their flocks.
Shellal itself reaches an elevation of 4,100 feet; Shindeh, 4,500 feet; Riadh, 4,800 feet; and Asortriba or Sorturba to the south seems, though we did not get its elevation, to be the highest of the group. On our return to Halaib we passed a Bisharin encampment, consisting of half a dozen beehive huts made of matting on rounded sticks.
He held her by her arms and now she suddenly twisted violently, writhed and wrenched herself free, leaving a velvet sleeve in James's grasp and leaping back from him, one creamy shoulder bared by the tattered gown and her wonderful hair loosened and foaming about her head to lend her the aspect of a beautiful Bisharîn girl, wild as the desert gazelle.
But the beast must be a good Bisharin; I will take no baggage-camel. Then the bargaining began, and at the end of half an hour the first deposit was paid over to the sheik, who talked in low tones to the driver. Dick heard the latter say: 'A little way out only. Any baggage-beast will serve. Am I a fool to waste my cattle for a blind man?
Now, having seen the Bisharin, you can imagine what dervishes looked like. For they dressed their hair in the same way, they wore the same dirty-white garments, and as they came yelling onward at a run, brandishing their weapons, it must have taken some courage for the Egyptian soldiers to meet them steadily. All the men in the carriage with us are going on up to Khartoum and beyond.
So, when the ground was practicable, they crossed the sky-line at top speed, hastened through the intervening valley, and crept in Indian file to the next crest. The Bisharin camels had long ceased to utter their unavailing growls.
The governor, Ismael, has been there seven years; he and his family inhabit some wicker cages near the small white fort, and gathered round them are the huts of his soldiers and the cabins of a few Bisharin, who live under the immediate protection of the fort.
They have the Ababdeh to the north, and the Amara Bisharin to the south, and apparently their relations with their neighbours are usually strained. These tribes are purely pastoral, and cultivate no land whatsoever. They live in huts in groups of from three to six together, and are scattered over the country at wide intervals.
There is no longer any sign by which I may know the ruins of Yusef's house from the ruins of a hundred houses; nor does Yusef any longer sell rock-salt in the bazaar. Yet wait for me another week." The Arab of the Bisharin who wrote the letter was Harry Feversham.
What rivets our attention directly it comes into sight is an encampment of low mat huts like beehives right out in the midst of the sand. "Those belong to the Bisharin," says the same fair-haired, keen-faced man who had first spoken; "tribe of fuzzy-wuzzies! They extend right away from here to the Red Sea. Live on raw grain mostly. Quaint lot!"
Word Of The Day