After the actual landing Uncle Ben and George mounted the donkeys, and followed by the others on foot, all talking and in the highest spirits, they rode for some distance through great fields of cotton and rice until they came to a little village nestled away in the midst of palm-trees.
Here they stopped at Abdal's father's house, which was the biggest in the village, for Ali-Hijaz was the chief man of the little village and had many "fellaheen," or labourers, working in his cotton, rice, and cane fields.
Ali-Hijaz's house, like all the houses in the village, was built of mud bricks, which had first been baked by the sun; it was thatched with palm-leaves, and the trunks of palm-trees strengthened the walls and formed the rafters. Their host invited them into a large room, where they all seated themselves on mats spread on the hard earthen floor. While Ali-Hijaz offered Mr. Winthrop a long-stemmed pipe to smoke, Abdal and Nabul ran to the little Arab café of the village and soon came back bringing a big metal tray on which were a number of small cups and tiny tin pots of coffee. This was put in the middle of the floor and each person was served with a cup and one of the little pots of coffee. Menah and Zaida amused themselves playing with the baby, while their two mothers gossiped together, and George made friends with Abdal's little brother Amad, whom he thought looked very cunning in his white cotton gown and little turban stuck on his clean-shaven head.
"Just think, Uncle Ben," laughed George, "he can barely walk and yet he goes to the village school at five o'clock in the morning and stays till sundown, only coming home for dinner in the middle of the day. Whew! but that's hard work!"
"And then, all he learns is to recite the Koran—the Mohammedan Bible—at the top of his voice," replied Mr. Winthrop.
"A LAZY-LOOKING OLD CAMEL WAS SLOWLY TURNING A GREAT CREAKING WOODEN WHEEL."
"That little mite!" said George with a mock groan. "Well, I am glad I go to school in America."
But Amad seemed to grow fat in spite of it, and was at the head of the procession when the children trooped out to see the village. All the houses looked alike, with only one big wooden door and no windows, just little slits in the walls for air and light. Within most of these houses there was no furniture of any kind, save some rugs, mats, and cooking utensils, and a few boxes made of the wood of the palm-tree, in which to keep the family clothes. Abdal's father had two European beds in his house which he had brought from Cairo, but the villagers had no use for such new-fangled things. As they walked along all the little village children ran out to talk to Abdal and followed them until, as Nabul said, the procession looked like a kite with a long tail. There were almost as many dogs as children, and George fought rather shy of the fierce-looking mongrel curs that barked at their heels.