Between Salam and the Bedouins, on the other hand, good
feeling came naturally. The poor travellers, whose worldly wealth was ever
in their sight--a camel or two, a tent with scanty furniture, and a few
goats and sheep--had all the unexplored places of the world to wander in,
and all the heavens for their canopy. That is the life the Arabs love, and
it had tempted Salam many hundreds of miles from his native place, the
sacred city of Sheshawan, on the border of Er-Riff. The wandering instinct
is never very far from any of us who have once passed east of Suez, and
learned that the highest end and aim of life is not to live in a town,
however large and ugly, and suffer without complaining the inevitable
visits of the tax collector.
Our tent was set for the night in a valley that we reached by a path
half-buried in undergrowth and known only to the head muleteer. It was a
spot far removed from the beaten tracks of the travellers. In times past a
great southern kaid had set his summer-house there: its skeleton, changed
from grey to pink in the rosy light of sun-setting, stood before us, just
across a tiny stream fringed by rushes, willows, and oleanders.
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