On the contrary, he at once attributed my
advances to a laudable wish of acquiring statistical information,
and accordingly, when we got within speaking distance, he said, "I
dare say you wish to know how the plague is going on at Cairo?"
And then he went on to say, he regretted that his information did
not enable him to give me in numbers a perfectly accurate statement
of the daily deaths. He afterwards talked pleasantly enough upon
other and less ghastly subjects. I thought him manly and
intelligent, a worthy one of the few thousand strong Englishmen to
whom the empire of India is committed.
The night after the meeting with the people of the caravan,
Dthemetri, alarmed by their warnings, took upon himself to keep
watch all night in the tent. No robbers came except a jackal, that
poked his nose into my tent from some motive of rational curiosity.
Dthemetri did not shoot him for fear of waking me. These brutes
swarm in every part of Syria, and there were many of them even in
the midst of the void sands, that would seem to give such poor
promise of food. I can hardly tell what prey they could be hoping
for, unless it were that they might find now and then the carcass
of some camel that had died on the journey.
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