“Voyez-vous, madame, the Arabs are poorer than we. We must buy bread before quinine.”
We gave the poor old man a little money, and recollecting that I had brought a small bottle of quinine from England, fearing these marsh fevers myself, I got it out of my travelling-bag and gave it to the woman. She promised to give the poor baby a dose, but I fear he was past all help, and I looked sadly after the old man as he stalked away in his tattered burnouse, bearing his poor little burden on his shoulders.
Farther on, we stopped to see some hot springs which lie within a few leagues of Saïda. Following a small path that wound through labyrinthine thickets of tuya, palmetto, and lentisk, we came suddenly upon a scene, that with very little idealization might make as poetic a picture as one could see.
It was a party of Arab girls bathing in a small round pool. The bathers and the bathing-place were shut in by lustrous green foliage, above which showed the dark lines of the tents, the bright blue hills, and the brighter sky. A noontide shadow lay on the water, in which, like a flock of young ducks, plashed and played, and dived and ducked, a dozen wild young girls, their dark hair streaming to the waist, their faces expressive of the utmost enjoyment, their limbs glistening as they rose out of the water.
All at once they caught sight of us. There was a short succession of screams, a unanimous splashing, a glimpse of bare feet, and all was still again. They had fled the spot without even a thought of their clothes; and we unfortunate intruders were only harmless women after all!
After this we passed a tawny, monotonous region, all stone and sand, and only here and there varied by oases of cultivation. These little oases, poor patches of wheat and vegetables growing amid the intractable palmetto, were showing green and bright, despite the rudeness of the tillage; but, alas! the locusts had found them out. Both on our journey to Saïda and back we saw swarms of these creatures settling like glittering birds on the corn, or filling the air like snow-flakes. My heart sank within me as I thought of the poor Arabs and the devastation that threatened their little all.
We reached Saïda in good time that afternoon.
