his arrival upon the scene caused El Ayed to assume
a most innocent air. The two cousins together were
more than he felt equal to by himself. At the same
moment I called off Aissa to come back and help me
re-arrange some of the baggage which was slipping
off my camel, and so the incident came to a close.
I walked on ahead for the remainder of the day,
and kept Aissa by me, leaving El Haj and El Ayed
to bring up the rear with the camels.
Aissa was very anxious for me to lend him my
stick, a thick oaken one with an iron point, and to
allow him to give El Ayed a thrashing for his rudeness.
But as his ‘fighting weight’ was at the
outside nine stone and a half, while El Ayed was a
brawny ruffian who weighed a good solid twelve,
and who, moreover, carried a pistol which must have
been first cousin to a fifteen-pounder,. I did not
consider it advisable to accede to this request.
Aissa fumed and abused El Ayed to me for the
greater part of the afternoon, and it was not until
some hours afterwards that he completely recovered
his equanimity.
His opponent, on the other hand, appeared to
dismiss the matter almost immediately from his
thoughts, for he spent most of the remainder of the
day in singing gaily, like a man who is entirely at
peace with himself and his surroundings, some very
lively songs of * The Prisoner of Eairowan ’ type.
The sound of his voice did more than anything else
to keep up Alssa’s irritation.
El Ayed was too many for my guide. Aissa was
a little man with a tongue and a temper too big for
his size, and El Ayed delighted in teasing him
whenever he got a chance. He had early discovered
to his huge delight that he could without the
slightest difficulty get a rise out of him, and he never
allowed an opportunity of doing so to pass.
As the headman of the party Aissa should have
kept him in his place, but the task was beyond him.
He was not in the least afraid of him, for when his
blood was up—and it generally was when dealing
with his tormentor—he would have fought the devil
himself without the slightest hesitation.
If it had ever come to a fight El Ayed would
have got the worst of it, for El Haj would have sided
with his cousin. But Aissa was rather fond of
coming the elder brother over his harum-scarum
young relative, and El Haj in consequence rather
enjoyed than otherwise hearing him plagued and
jeered at.
El Ayed, in spite of his annoying and troublesome
ways, was not a bad fellow at heart. He came up
of his own accord that evening and apologised for
having laughed at me, giving, confound him, as his
reason for having done so that I reminded him of
his grandmother, whom he had once, when a boy,
seen go through the same acrobatic performance
while his tribe was making their annual migration
from the desert to the Tell.
We met one day a negro hunter, the slave of one
of the desert sfieykhs, who was engaged in hunting
gazelle for his master by means of a stalking camel.
If gazelle have been at all hunted it is extremely
difficult, unless the ground is unusually favourable,