The intervening space
was soon traversed, and I found myself approaching a Bedouin Arab
mounted on a camel, attended by another Bedouin on foot. They
stopped. I saw that, as usual, there hung from the pack-saddle of
the camel a large skin water-flask, which seemed to be well filled.
I steered my dromedary close up alongside of the mounted Bedouin,
caused my beast to kneel down, then alighted, and keeping the end
of the halter in my hand, went up to the mounted Bedouin without
speaking, took hold of his water-flask, opened it, and drank long
and deep from its leathern lips. Both of the Bedouins stood fast
in amazement and mute horror; and really, if they had never
happened to see an European before, the apparition was enough to
startle them. To see for the first time a coat and a waistcoat,
with the semblance of a white human head at the top, and for this
ghastly figure to come swiftly out of the horizon upon a fleet
dromedary, approach them silently and with a demoniacal smile, and
drink a deep draught from their water-flask--this was enough to
make the Bedouins stare a little; they, in fact, stared a great
deal--not as Europeans stare, with a restless and puzzled
expression of countenance, but with features all fixed and rigid,
and with still, glassy eyes.
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