180 JOURNEY FROM the Dubbah, who had left us, as before stated, to make arrangements for furnishing us with others. He entered our tent with three large ostrich eggs wrapped up very carefully in the folds of his baracan, (for this garment may be considered as a general envelope for everything which an Arab thinks worthy of a cover,) and having unfolded them, one by one, laid them down very solemnly and ceremoniously, and with the greatest air of consequence imaginable, on the mat upon which we were sitting. All this was of course intended to enhance the value of the present, and we received it accordingly with all due acknowledgments. The prelude being over, Shekh Mahommed assumed a very mysterious air, and drew a little closer towards us ; then low'ering his voice, which was not usually one of the most gentle, he began to inform us (looking occasionally round the tent, as if he feared to be overheard from without) that a large troop of marauding Arabs were then at Kebri t, having recently arrived there from the neighbourhood of Cairo, and that they were lying in wait lor our party. There could be no doubt, he added, of the truth of this statement, for one of his own sons had just arrived from Cairo himself ! On our asking him whether this son had actually seen the Arabs in question, he replied that, as yet, no person had seen them, but that the prints of horses' feet, to the number of sixty, had been observed about the wells near Kebrit, and that there could be no doubt whatever ol the sinister intentions of the party. “ But fear nothing,” continued the Shekh, with an air of greater importance, “ while the Dubbah is your friend and conductor ; for I will myself,” said he, “ go on in advance, and if I find the tracks of hostile horses about the wells.