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It was a people that lived upon the streets, for all the houses seemed empty and forsaken. The sais ran before the Pasha's carriage, the donkey-boys shrieked for their right of way, a train of camels calmly forced its passage through the swirling crowds, supercilious and heavy-laden.
Immediately on arriving, as we commenced to unload the camels, a number of men who were occupying that district the Urus Sage section of the Habr Gerhajis tribe seized the camels by their heads, and demanded their customary fees, at the same time boisterously gesticulating that they would help themselves if their request was not complied with.
It was a large caravan; the bales on the camels' backs looked heavy, and beside the merchants on riding camels and a motley crowd of followers some on lean little donkeys and others on foot there was an armed guard of mounted men. It took some time to pass. One of two of the camels carried huddled figures, swathed and shapeless with a multitude of coverings, that Diana knew must be women.
You said, again, 'Greetings to you, you who are before the camels. Before them are their heads. You said, 'Greetings to you, O master of the white mare, And then I answered to you, 'Greetings to you also," Ahmed el Hilalieu asked of the shepherd, "What is your name?" "I am called Chira." "Well, Chira, tell me where Redah lives. Is it at the city of the stones or in the garden of the palms?"
The food, too, was dry and stale, and no fresh food could be procured, for the Affghans, before they fled, destroyed the corn and fruit growing in the fields, that their enemies might not eat them. The camels, too, which bore the baggage of the British army, grew ill from heat and thirst; for it is not true that camels can live long without water; in three or four days they die.
Then he commanded that the camels and other beasts of burthen should be unloaded in their presence, and he began to open the packages and display the noble things which were contained therein.
Accordingly our camels knelt at the door of a little circular stone building about twelve feet in diameter, with a roof thatched according to Arab fashion.
His work took him along the edge of the Red Sea, where men on swift camels come to smuggle hashish, and sometimes guns, from dhows that put in to any convenient beach. These smugglers must be chased on still swifter camels, and since the wells are few and known, the game is to get ahead of them and occupy their drinking-places. But they may skip a well or so, and do several days' march in one.
Fine wool may be found here in great abundance, and, above all, woollen stuffs, half white and half crimson, which are used by the inhabitants for their dresses. The merchants who purchase them, in order to sell them in the interior parts of the country, give camels in exchange.
We had a very steep descent after that over sharp stones to the plain, my husband and I, as usual, when on foot, starting before the others, and though we were sorry when we finally quitted the mountains, we were glad enough to find ourselves on our camels again, to be carried to Suk, where we decided to stay, as we heard that the sultan's boat was there and the sultan himself was not so very far off.
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