[77]It was on one of these occasions that a small sack of mine in which were all the collections I had made at Shendy, fell overboard through the negligence of a sailor. A few specimens of rocks still remain in my possession.
[78]In the market of Souakin I often saw hares, and was told that the Bedouins in the neighbourhood follow their footsteps in the sands, and surprise and kill them during the noon tide heat, while they rest under the shade of the shrubs.
[79]This is an Arabic name; the names of the bays we had hitherto visited are Bisharye.
[80]The Syrian Bedouins have the same custom in bargaining for their horses. The purchaser states the price he is willing to give, and the owner, without explaining the sum he wants, replies to every bidding by the word Hot (حط, give or set down,) till the bidder has reached the price which he has fixed in his own mind.
[81]Thus they say, “We crossed over the sea on such a day” (نحن كورّنا البحر يوم الفلاني)—and again, “We started from Djebel to cross over to Djidda (نحن كورّنا من الجبل الي جدّه). In the northern parts of the Red Sea they use, instead of the second expression, the verb دفع, and say, “We started from Ras Mohammed to cross over to the western continent (نحن دفعنا من راس محمّد الي البَّر الغربي).
[82]These unfortunate Tekaýrne were two days and a half in reaching Djidda; one of their women and a boy, perished of thirst by the way, and the remainder of the party arrived in an exhausted state: they uttered bitter complaints against the sailors for their falsehood.
APPENDIX.