blessing we enjoyed for three days; down this channel all the winter
runs a great river which is dried up in the heats, or to speak more
properly, hides itself under ground. We walked along its side,
sometimes seven or eight leagues without seeing any water, and then
we found it rising out of the ground, at which places we never
failed to drink as much as we could, and fill our bottles.

In our march, there fell out an unlucky accident, which, however,
did not prove of the bad consequence it might have done. The master
of our camels was an old Mohammedan, who had conceived an opinion
that it was an act of merit to do us all the mischief he could; and
in pursuance of his notion, made it his chief employment to steal
everything he could lay hold on; his piety even transported him so
far, that one morning he stole and hid the cords of our tents. The
patriarch who saw him at the work charged him with it, and upon his
denial, showed him the end of the cord hanging from under the saddle
of one of his camels. Upon this we went to seize them, but were
opposed by him and the rest of the drivers, who set themselves in a
posture of opposition with their daggers. Our soldiers had recourse
to their muskets, and four of them putting the mouths of their
pieces to the heads of some of the most obstinate and turbulent,
struck them with such a terror, that all the clamour was stilled in
an instant; none received any hurt but the Moor who had been the
occasion of the tumult. He was knocked down by one of our soldiers,
who had cut his throat but that the fathers prevented it: he then
restored the cords, and was more tractable ever after. In all my
dealings with the Moors, I have always discovered in them an ill-
natured cowardice, which makes them insupportably insolent if you
show them the least respect, and easily reduced to reasonable terms
when you treat them with a high hand.