up to its reputation, quiet, inert, like a mercury mirror for the
stars--a brooding place of silence.

The Arabs' spirits rose as we chugged toward their savage hills.
They began to sing glorious songs about women and mares and
camels. Presently Anazeh improvised an epic about the night's
raid, abortive though it had been. He left out all the
disappointing part. He sang first of the three shore-dwelling
fools whose boats they had stolen. Then of the baffled rage of
those same fools when they should learn their property was lost
forever. Presently, as he warmed to the spirit of the thing, he
sang about the wails of the frightened villagers from whom they
had plundered sheep and goats; and of the skill and
resourcefulness with which the party had escaped pursuit under
his leadership, Allah favoring, "and blessed be His Prophet!"

Last, he sang about me, the honoured stranger, for whom they had
dared everything and conquered, and whom they were taking to El-
Kerak. He described me as a prince from a far country, the son
of a hundred kings.

It was a good song. I got Ahmed to translate it to me
afterwards. But I suspect that Ahmed toned it down in deference
to what he may have thought might be my modesty and moralistic
scruples.