up. We fully expected a charge and a skirmish, so we halted in a line
and consulted; they did the same. Three of us then rode out to meet
them; three horsemen of their line then did likewise. They hailed us,
and asked us who we were and what we wanted. We told them we were the
English and Russian Consuls passing to Palmyra, and asked in our turn who
they were. They replied that they were the representatives of the Shaykh
of Karyatayn, and his fighting men, and that they bore invitations to us.
They then jumped down from their horses and kissed my hand. We were
greeted on all sides, and escorted in triumph to the village; the men
riding _jerid_--that is, firing from horseback at full speed, hanging
over by one stirrup with the bridle in their mouths, quivering their long
lances in the air, throwing and catching them again at full gallop,
yelling and shouting their war-cries. It was a wild and picturesque
scene. So we entered Karyatayn, went to the house of the Shaykh, and
dispatched a note to him.

His dwelling was a big mud house, with a large reception-room, where we
found a big fire. There was a separate house for the harim, which
appeared numerous, and I was to sleep there in a room to myself. Before
dinner, while we were enjoying the fire and sitting round the rug, a fat
young Turkish officer entered with an insolent look. Thinking he had
come with a message from Omar Beg, a Hungarian brigadier-general in the
Turkish service who was stationed here, we saluted in the usual manner.
Without returning it, he walked up, stepped across us, flung himself on
our rug, leaned on his elbow, and with an impertinent leer stared in our
faces all round until he met Richard's eye, which partook of something
of the tiger kind, when he started and turned pale. Richard called out,
"Kawwasses!" The kawwasses and two wardis ran into the room. "Remove
that son of a dog." They seized him, fat and big as he was, as if he had
been a rabbit; and although he kicked and screamed lustily, carried him