among them his elder brother and several friends: the Sharif Zayd had
sent, he said, to ask why he did not travel with his compatriots. That
evening he drank so copiously of clarified butter, and ate dates mashed
with flour and other abominations to such an extent, that at night he
prepared to give up the ghost.

We passed a pleasant hour or two before sleeping. I began to like the
old Shaykh Mas’ud, who, seeing it, entertained me with his genealogy, his
battles, and his family affairs. The rest of the party could not
prevent expressing contempt when they heard me putting frequent
questions about torrents, hills, Badawin, and the directions of places.
“Let the Father of Moustachios ask and learn,” said the old man; “he is
friendly with the Badawin,[FN#14] and knows better than you all.” This
reproof was intended to be bitter as the poet’s satire,—

“All fools have still an itching to deride,
And fain would be upon the laughing side.”

It called forth, however[,] another burst of merriment, for the jeerers
remembered my nickname to have belonged to that pestilent heretic, Sa’ud
the Wahhabi.

On Saturday, the 3rd September, the hateful signal-gun awoke us at one
A.M. In Arab travel there is nothing more disagreeable than the Sariyah
or night-march, and yet the people are inexorable about it. “Choose early
Darkness (daljah) for your Wayfarings,” said the Prophet, “as the
Calamities of the Earth (serpents and wild beasts) appear not at Night.”
I can scarcely find words to express the weary horrors of the long dark
march, during which the hapless traveller, fuming, if a European, with
disappointment in his hopes of “seeing the country,”