So often it happens that the poor Bedouin, when once
jammed in between walls, is seized by the Government authorities
for the sake of his camels, that his innate horror of cities
becomes really justified by results.
The Bedouins with whom I performed this journey were wild fellows
of the Desert, quite unaccustomed to let out themselves or their
beasts for hire, and when they found that by the natural ascendency
of Europeans they were gradually brought down to a state of
subserviency to me, or rather to my attendants, they bitterly
repented, I believe, of having placed themselves under our control.
They were rather difficult fellows to manage, and gave Dthemetri a
good deal of trouble, but I liked them all the better for that.
Selim, the chief of the party, and the man to whom all our camels
belonged, was a fine, savage, stately fellow. There were, I think,
five other Arabs of the party, but when we approached the end of
the journey they one by one began to make off towards the
neighbouring encampments, and by the time that the minarets of Gaza
were in sight, Selim, the owner of the camels, was the only one who
remained. He, poor fellow, as we neared the town began to discover
the same terrors that my Arabs had shown when I entered Cairo.
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