THE TENT,
boots which I had taken off. He seemed absolutely
fearless. As a precautionary measure, Alssa slept
with the couscous bag for a pillow, but several times
during the night he had to frighten the little beast
away, and in the morning when he examined the bag
he found that two fresh holes had been made in it.
It rained again during the night, and then, by
way of variety, it froze a little towards morning.
The Arabs do not seem, as a rule, to mind the cold
at all. It is, I believe, a scientific fact that an Arab
has a hide just about three times the thickness of any
European s skin. On that occasion, however, Aissa
admitted in the morning that it had been cool, while
I, with two blankets, a railway rug and an ulster,
lay and shivered in my bed with Aissa’s burnous
hanging with El Ayed’s over the front of the tent
so as to close it.
The caravan we camped with were up and off
some time before we were ready. We followed
about an hour later.
It was Longfellow, I believe, who wrote about
the cares that infest the day folding their tents like
the Arabs and silently stealing away.’ He was presumably
indulging in a little poetic licence. I have
frequently seen the Arabs folding their tents and
I have also suffered on one occasion from their
‘ silent stealing ’—they are past-masters in the art—
though not in the sense in which the poet meant.
A more noisy and tumultuous proceeding than the
break up of an Arab camp it is impossible to imagine-
Even the folding-up and packing of my small tent
occasioned a fairly tumultuous scene.
I 2