It was by no means easy to cross it; but we did it somehow, and two hours afterwards, we were under our tents, pitched towards the north-east, in front of the principal gate. This wide oasis is a charming landscape, framed in a broad golden line, which bounds it on every side. It is an island of verdure in a vast expanse of sand. From our high-perched camp, we commanded the minutest details of the village. Facing us was the principal gate, a kind of arcade, composed alternately of dry and burned bricks. This is the meeting-ground of all the arrivals, the great market where all the most important personages of the locality assemble. On the right a pretty minaret springs into the air, like the tower of a village church, and several tufts of palm-trees break the monotony of the roofs and terraces of the houses. Animals of all kinds, as well as the inhabitants, walk about on the roofs, and nothing can exceed the oddity of the spectacle, regarded on a large scale. Here are women, spreading out linen to dry, Arabs rebuilding a dilapidated roof, children running about, and jumping from house to house like our liveliest gutter-cats. In all this comical animation the feature which struck us most was the incredible number of dogs: never had we seen so many, or such a variety. Not a terrace but

was ornamented with at least three or four of these animals, sitting like sphinxes, watching and spying our every movement.

This picturesque coup d'œil of a city of dogs was followed by a much less pleasant impression during the night. From the setting until the rising of the sun, these thousands of guardians of the public peace called and replied to one another, in every note of the canine gamut, the plaintive, the piercing, and the harsh. It was enough to make one believe that Jezebel allowed her dogs to eat her, rather than listen to them any longer. The state of fatigue to which our day in the Desert had reduced us, rendered this gratuitous and obligatory concert the more unendurable, and it lasted, without the briefest entr'acte, from six o'clock in the evening until five o'clock in the morning.

That horrible night was one long, unceasing nightmare. Cries, threats, curses, all were vain. Our dragoman, in an excess of zeal, killed two of the dogs with his revolver; which made the case much worse, for all the dogs in the village rushed tumultuously to devour their comrades, and we were surrounded by a hideous tempest of howls which would have frightened Dante. With the first rays of the sun came quiet, the

THE SON OF THE SHEIK.

87

infernal chorus sank into silence. It was time, for we were quite worn out, not one of us having closed an eye all night.

The

On the next night but one, we organised a hunting expedition, with the assistance of some natives. sheik of Tamyèh had professed much interest in the matter, and promised us his active aid; so that we expected a display of his forces in proportion to the enthusiasm he had manifested the day before. In the morning, everyone was ready, and we were awaiting the promised reinforcement, all being under arms in the centre of the village, when we perceived a big fellow, simply attired in a brown tunic, much too short, who came towards us, jumping and gesticulating like a lunatic. This ape was the son of the sheik, and, apart from this title to consideration, nothing in his exterior was calculated to excuse the scantiness of his costume. Cries, jumps, pirouettes in space were all we could obtain from this acrobatic Nimrod for

some time. When we observed to him that, to combat the Desert enemy, he had no weapon but his ten fingers, he sped away to the tent in which our food was cooked, and returned with a huge knife, which he held between his teeth so that his hands might be free for his extraordinary gesticulations.