slave girl paid us daily visits, with, presents of fruit
from her kind master and numerous mistresses, who,
with the usual Turkish compliments as a preliminary
message, requested permission to visit the English lady.
In the. cool hour of evening a bevy of ladies approached
through the dark groves of citron trees, so
gaily dressed in silks of the brightest dyes of yellow,
blue, and scarlet, that no bouquet of flowers could
have been more gaudy. They were attended by numerous
slaves, and the head servant politely requested
me to withdraw during the interview. Thus turned
out of my tent I was compelled to patience and solitude
beneath a neighbouring date palm.
The result of the interview with my wife was most
satisfactory ; the usual womanish questions had been
replied to, and hosts of compliments exchanged. We
were then rich in all kinds of European trifles that
excited their curiosity, and a few little presents established
so great an amount of confidence that they
gave the individual history of each member of the
family from childhood, that would have filled a column
of the Times with births, deaths, and marriages.
Some of these ladies were very young and pretty,
and of course exercised a certain influence over their
husbands; thus, on the following morning, we were
inundated with visitors, as the male members of the
fam ily came to thank us for the manner in which their
ladies had been received; and fruit, flowers, and the
general produce of the garden were presented us in
profusion. However pleasant, there were drawbacks
to our Garden of Eden; there was dust in our
Paradise; not the dust that we see in Europe upon
unwatered roads, that simply fills the eyes, but sudden
clouds raised by whirlwinds in the desert which fairly
choked the ears and nostrils when thus attacked.
June is the season when these phenomena are most
prevalent. At that time the rains have commenced in
the south and are extending towards the north; the
cold and heavier air of the southern rain-clouds sweeps
down upon the overheated atmosphere of the desert,
and produces sudden violent squalls and whirlwinds
when least expected, as at that time the sky is cloudless.
■
The effect of these desert whirlwinds is most
curious, as their force is sufficient to raise dense
columns of sand and dust several thousand feet high ;
these are not the evanescent creations of a changing
wind, but they frequently exist for many hours, and
travel forward, or more usually in circles, resembling
in the distance solid pillars of sand. The Arab superstition
invests these appearances with the supernatural,
and the mysterious sand-column of the desert wandering
in its burning solitude, is an evil spirit, a “ Gin”
(“ genii ” plural, of the Arabian Nights). I have
frequently seen many such columns at the same time
in the boundless desert, all travelling or waltzing
in various directions at the wilful choice of each,
whirlwind : this vagrancy of character is an undoubted
proof to the Arab mind of their independent and diabolical
origin.