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I wore my cloak for two hours after dawn, and felt chilly, and yet at noonday the thermometer was at least 130° Fah., in the sun. We emerged from the prickly-pear hedges upon an open desert land. Here was an encampment of Arabs, with tents as "black" and "comely" in this glare and fire of the full morning sun, as "the tents of Kedar!"
She did not flush beneath their scrutiny; on the contrary, she seemed rather to enjoy it, her eyes being kindled with a light of contented exultation, subdued to square with the circumstances of her matronly position. She was, at the distance from which they surveyed her, an attractive woman comely as the tents of Kedar.
In the evening there was a dinner party at the Residency, to which Mrs Fraser very kindly invited us, and there was pleasant talk about Burmah and princely pageants, elephant kedar camps, and the right royal entertainments to be held at Mysore; and of how the twenty valets and the hundreds of guests are to be provided for; to quote the Tales of the Highlands, "there will be music in the place of hearing, meat in the place of eating, smooth drinks and rough drinks, and drinks for the laying down of slumber, mirth raised and lament laid down, and a right joyful hearty plying of the feast and Royal Company" but how it is all to be done is past my comprehension!
Far be it from us to think that all things are not then to be cleared up; that the innocent little ones of Kedar and the exterminated Canaanites will not then be heard one by one, and no longer be mingled up indiscriminately in an overwhelming national judgment; that the pleas of evil education and example, of hereditary taint and common usage, will be then thrown aside as vain excuse; and that eventual justice will not with facility explain every riddle in the moral government of God.
Once or twice the travellers passed a shepherd herding sheep or goats on the mountain side, himself clad in goatskin, with a great brown cloak floating from his shoulders a living picture of Ishmael or those sons of his who dwelt in the tents of Kedar. A few muleteers drew aside to let the horses pass, and exchanged some words in an undertone with Conyngham's guide.
I know I am too dissatisfied with the beings around me; but I cannot help occasionally exclaiming, "Woe is me, that I am constrained to dwell with Meshech, and to have my habitation among the tents of Kedar." I know I am noways better in practice than my neighors, but I have a taste for religion, an occasional earnest aspiration after perfection, which they have not.
The routes to Jemauhi, Kedar, Nath, and Sirinagur all meet there. Beyond Batheri the road became so bad that the travellers were obliged to abandon their baggage. There was a mere path-track by the edge of precipices, amid débris of stones and rocks; and the attempt to proceed was soon relinquished. Devaprayaga is situated at the junction of the Baghirati, and the Aluknanda.
Elsewhere we hear of the "travelling companies of the Dedanim," of the men of Sheba bringing their gold and frankincense; of a multitude of camels coming up to Palestine with wood from Kedar and Nebaioth. Heeren is entirely justified in his conclusion that the land trade of the Phoenicians was conducted by "large companies or caravans, since it could only have been carried on in this way."
"But, brothers, if we went down among them and told them how happy we were, and how the flower's grow on the hillside, they would surely come up and leave all sorrow. They cannot know or they would come." Ananda was a mere child, though so tall for his years. "They would not come," said Kedar; "all their joy is to haggle and hoard.
'And I, said Concepcion, turning round with a brush in his hand, 'should like a moment's conversation with Senor Larralde. 'Ah! 'Yes, Excellency, he is in this matter too. But the Senor Larralde is so modest so modest! He always remains in the background. In the tents of Kedar men sleep as sound as those who lie on soft pillows, and Conyngham was late astir the next morning.
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