The
Bedouins are driven out of this district during the summer by the
total want of water, but before the time for their forced departure
arrives they succeed in raising little crops of barley from these
comparatively fertile patches of ground. They bury the fruit of
their labours, leaving marks by which, upon their return, they may
be able to recognise the spot. The warm, dry sand stands them for
a safe granary. The country at the time I passed it (in the month
of April) was pretty thickly sprinkled with Bedouins expecting
their harvest. Several times my tent was pitched alongside of
their encampments. I have told you already what the impressions
were which these people produced upon my mind.
I saw several creatures of the antelope kind in this part of the
Desert, and one day my Arabs surprised in her sleep a young gazelle
(for so I called her), and took the darling prisoner. I carried
her before me on my camel for the rest of the day, and kept her in
my tent all night. I did all I could to coax her, but the
trembling beauty refused to touch food, and would not be comforted.
Whenever she had a seeming opportunity of escaping she struggled
with a violence so painfully disproportioned to her fine, delicate
limbs, that I could not continue the cruel attempt to make her my
own.
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