Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 December 2010
In this menzil, because the people must march from the morrow, the booths were struck and their baggage had been made up before they slept. The Beduin families lay abroad under the stars, beside their household stuff and the unshapely full sweating water-skins. The night was cold, at an altitude of 3600 feet. I saw the nomads stretched upon the sand, wrapped in their mantles: a few have sleeping carpets, ekîm, under them, made of black worsted stuff like their tent-cloth, but of the finer yarn and better weaving, adorned with a border of chequerwork of white and coloured wool and fringes gaily dyed. The ekîms of Teyma have a name in this country.
It was chill under the stars at this season, marching before the sun in the open wilderness. The children of the poor have not a mantle, only a cotton smock covers their tender bodies; some babes are even seen naked. I found 48° F., and when the sun was fairly up 86°. It was a forced march; the flocks and the herds, et-tursh, were driven forth beside us. At a need the Beduw spare not the cattle which are all their wealth, but think they do well to save themselves and their substance, even were it with the marring of some of them; their camel kine great with young were now daily calving.
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