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Updated: May 16, 2025
Naturally conversing about the locusts, he informed his companions that the year before he had been upon a part of the Saaran coast where a cloud of these insects had been driven out to sea by a storm and drowned.
It would not be the first Saaran castaway he had in this manner restored to his friends and his country, not from any motives of humanity, but simply for the profit it produced. On the other hand, the black competitor had a different, though somewhat similar, purpose in view. His thoughts extended towards the south. There lay the emporium of his commerce, the great mud-built town of Timbuctoo.
Flocks of sheep and goats, with a number of horses, camels and donkeys were also within the enclosure. Jim informed his companions that most of the Saaran Arabs have fixed habitations, where they dwell the greater part of the year, generally walled towns, such as the one they had now entered.
The Saaran rovers on foot, as well as those that were mounted, their horses, dogs, and camels, as they stood upon that smooth plain, seemed to have been suddenly transformed into stone, and set like so many sphinxes in the sand.
As to their having either drowned themselves, or walked away over the waste of waters, the old sheik had seen too many Saaran summers and winters to give credence either to one tale or the other. He knew they would turn up again; and though he was not quite certain of the where, he more than half suspected it.
What they had seen of Saaran civilisation had inspired them with a keen disgust for it; and they were only too eager to escape from its proximity. The punishment inflicted upon poor Bill had made a painful impression upon them; and they had no desire to become the victims of a similar chastisement. Colin did not urge his councils.
Every pint was precious; and to prove that it was so esteemed, the animals were constrained to swallow it in a fashion which certainly nature could never have intended. Instead of taking it in by the mouth, the camels of these Saaran rovers were compelled to quench their thirst through the nostrils!
For the favour, if such it could be called, they were simply indebted to the avarice of the old sheik, who, having recovered from the stunning effects of his tumble, claimed all three as his captives, and their shirts along with them. His claim as to their persons was not disputed; they were his by Saaran custom.
Had our adventurers been better acquainted with Saaran customs, they would have concluded that this had been the case; for they would have known that, on the approach of a shumu, the forecasts of which are well-known, the Bedouins at once and in all haste break up their encampment and put themselves and their whole personal property in motion.
After staggering some paces over the ground, his thoughts returned to him; and he more clearly comprehended his situation. Escape was out of the question. He was prisoner to a party of wandering Bedouins, the worst to be found in all the wide expanse of the Saaran desert, the wreckers of the Atlantic coast.
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