26 A PITEOUS TALE.

driven out to feed at break of day. To accomplish more in

the day than eight hours, means getting up at a more than

abnormally early hour, and continually hustling the camel

drivers to bring in their camels ; or, it means pitching your

tents in darkness, and getting dinner very late. In eight

hours the caravan will accomplish twenty miles, and the same

distance can be got over on fair hygeens in about four or five.

The start should be made in advance of the baggage-camels,

so as to allow plenty of time for shooting, and for the midday

halt.

Besides the discomfort to the traveller if camels are con-

stantly pressed to do more than eight hours, they do not get

sufficient time to feed ; as, when on the march, all they can

get, of course, is a mouthful of food snatched now and then as

they are travelling, and they otigJit to have time given them to

feed morning and evening.

The country gradually became less green, as we augmented

the distance between us and the sea ; heavy clouds hung about,

the air was close and sultry, and we had some heavy showers. We wound through some rocky hillocks before pitching our

tents, and finally encamped in the sandy bed of a kJior, at a

place called Siterabb, near the first water out from Souakim,

and where there were a few huts belonging to the telegraph-

people.

The following morning, a very wretched-looking old woman

came to us with a piteous tale of how she had been robbed of

her all,— a few dollars she had saved,— by the telegraph-people.

I gave her a dollar, and her joy was unbounded: she insisted

not only on kissing my hand, but my boots ; and I began to

feel that there was such a thing as excess of gratitude, — at

any rate, that it could be expressed in too demonstrative a

manner.