Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates Vol 2 - The Search For Mecca

cii. XIX.] The Pleasures of Talk. 67
the fez only, while the Bedouins fasten their kefiyes
with an aghaal or camel's hair rope. However,
such is our costume, and it puzzled the Consul
not a little.
I don't think I ever really enjoyed talking for
talking's sake till this morning, but we have been
so long without it. We had so much to tell and to
hear, that for a couple of hours at least our tongues
never stopped an instant. Mr. S. had been detained
by the arrival of his successor at Aleppo, and so had
failed us, but to make up had travelled day and night
since, hoping to find us still at Deyr. At Treyf, he
had learned from some zaptiehs that we had started
from Tudmur, and leaving the valley had struck
across the desert straight for this place.
It had been
a hard ride, without food or water for the beasts
for many hours. At Arak the horse he rode could go
no further, and the two mares he was brinoins; for
us began to sufier from sore backs, so he had stopped
short at this last stage of his journey, almost despairing
of getting up with us after all. It is
fortunate that his messenger arrived when he did, as
three hours later we should have been off to the
Hamad and out of all reckoning. Then there was
political news to hear, the collapse of the Turks
before Constantinople, an armistice, changes of
ministry, and a thousand other things, to say
nothing of a
huge bundle of letters from England,
the first we have received for nearly four months.
These, although hungry for news, we have decided