to return one moment, and give her a farewell caress. As I lifted her in
my arms, she, as usual, put her hand into the pocket of my loose jacket
to search, as I thought, for the fruit that I usually brought home for
her when I returned from the bazaar; but there was none there: and
having replaced her in the arms of her mother, I hastened away that I
might not be too late at my post. Your highness is aware that we do not
march one following another, as most caravans do, but in one straight
line abreast. The necessary arrangement occupies the whole day previous
to the commencement of our journey, which takes place immediately after
the sun goes down. We set off that evening, and after a march of two
nights, arrived at Adjeroid, where we remained three days, to procure
our supplies of water from Suez, and to refresh the animals, previous to
our forced march over the desert of El Tyh.

The last day of our repose, as I was smoking my pipe, with my camels
kneeling down around me, I perceived a herie[1] coming from the
direction of Cairo, at a very swift pace; it passed by me like a flash
of lightning, but still I had sufficient time to recognise in its rider
the Maribout who had prophesied evil if my camel was employed to carry
the Koran on the pilgrimage of the year before.

[1] A swift dromedary.

The Maribout stopped his dromedary at the tent of the Emir Hadjy, who
commanded the caravan. Anxious to know the reason of his following us,
which I had a foreboding was connected with my camel, I hastened to the
spot. I found him haranguing the Emir and the people who had surrounded
him, denouncing woe and death to the whole caravan if my camel was not
immediately destroyed, and another selected in his stead. Having for
some time declaimed in such an energetic manner as to spread