Well, so when you have travelled for days and days over an
Eastern desert without meeting the likeness of a human being, and
then at last see an English shooting-jacket and his servant come
listlessly slouching along from out of the forward horizon, you
stare at the wide unproportion between this slender company and the
boundless plains of sand through which they are keeping their way.
This Englishman, as I afterwards found, was a military man
returning to his country from India, and crossing the Desert at
this part in order to go through Palestine. As for me, I had come
pretty straight from England, and so here we met in the wilderness
at about half-way from our respective starting-points. As we
approached each other it became with me a question whether we
should speak. I thought it likely that the stranger would accost
me, and in the event of his doing so I was quite ready to be as
sociable and chatty as I could be according to my nature; but still
I could not think of anything particular that I had to say to him.
Of course, among civilised people the not having anything to say is
no excuse at all for not speaking, but I was shy and indolent, and
I felt no great wish to stop and talk like a morning visitor in the
midst of those broad solitudes.
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