I pushed forward as
eagerly as though I had spoiled the Egyptians and were flying from
Pharaoh's police.
I had not yet been able to discover any symptoms of Suez, but after
a while I descried in the distance a large, blank, isolated
building. I made towards this, and in time got down to it. The
building was a fort, and had been built there for the protection of
a well which it contained within its precincts. A cluster of small
huts adhered to the fort, and in a short time I was receiving the
hospitality of the inhabitants, who were grouped upon the sands
near their hamlet. To quench the fires of my throat with about a
gallon of muddy water, and to swallow a little of the food placed
before me, was the work of few minutes, and before the astonishment
of my hosts had even begun to subside, I was pursuing my onward
journey. Suez, I found, was still three hours distant, and the sun
going down in the west warned me that I must find some other guide
to keep me in the right direction. This guide I found in the most
fickle and uncertain of the elements. For some hours the wind had
been freshening, and it now blew a violent gale; it blew not
fitfully and in squalls, but with such remarkable steadiness, that
I felt convinced it would blow from the same quarter for several
hours.
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