Each Arab tribe has its own camel brand. The Wasm of the Senussi Dervishes is the word “Allah” branded on the neck. ([p. 24]).
Breadmaking in the Desert.
The bedawin roll their dough into a thin cake and toast it on an iron plate. ([p. 207]).
Sieving the Baby.
This baby is being shaken in a sieve, containing grain, etc., while a woman beats with a pestle on a mortar, to ensure that he shall not starve when he grows up or be afraid of noise, and shall become a fast runner. ([p. 249.])
The bedawin Arabs, owing to their making so much use of the stars as guides during their night journeys, know them all, and have names, and often stories, to tell concerning them. The Pole Star, the one that they use most as a guide, is known as the Jidi, or he-goat, which the stars of the Great Bear—the Banat Nash, or daughters of Nash, are trying to steal, being prevented from doing so by the two ghaffirs (watchmen), which are known to us also—perhaps from this same Arab legend that has been forgotten—as the “guardians” of the Pole Star. In some parts the Great and Little Bear are known as the she-camel and her foal. The Pleiades are called “the daughters of the night.” Orion is a hunter with his belt and sword, who is followed by his dog (canis major), and is chasing a bagar el wahash (wild bull), i.e. the constellation of Taurus. Much of our astronomy originally came, I believe, from the Arabs, and many of the stars are still called by their Arabic names, such for instance as Altair, the bird, the name by which it is still known to the bedawin.
Shooting stars, which in the desert often blaze out with a brilliance difficult to realise by dwellers in a misty climate like England, are believed by Moslems to be arrows shot by the angels at the evil spirits to drive them away when they steal up to eavesdrop at the gate of heaven.
There are always certain events in a journey that impress themselves more indelibly on one’s memory than those perhaps of greater consequence, and that hurried return to the plateau was one of them.