Page:Ainsworth's Magazine - Volume 1.djvu/118

My object was, if possible, to obtain a guide, who might at once shew me the short cut—for the river bends—and serve me as a protection against other Arabs; so, with what little of the language I was master of, I explained my situation and wants, offering a present if they were acceded to. The fellahs, however, said it was impossible to go by day, as there were Bedwins on the road; but that if I would stop till night, a guide would go with me. This, with the distance before me, being out of the question, I repaired to the house of the sheikh, whom I found surrounded by his family, and who received me in the usual distrustful manner. After some altercation, it was arranged that I should give my handkerchief to the favourite daughter, and deposit a gazi with the shiekh for the guide. Although doubting the sincerity of the performance, I had no chance but acquiescence; and so we started,—the Arab first taking off his shoes,—at a good pace.

We kept up, with little conversation, for upwards of two hours, when we met another fellah; and my guide putting on his shoes, entered into an earnest colloquy with him, which, from various signs and nods, it was easy to see had reference to me and the possible other gazis I might have in my possession. When I urged the guide to hasten forward, he only laughed, and asked for more money; so I was ultimately obliged to relinquish his company, and proceed by myself. From this point, till I reached the valley of Haditha, I saw no more villages. The country was low and undulating, with a soil of gravel and a vegetation of wormwood, mixed with a few grasses; stretching out in a black and apparently boundless expanse; fatiguing by its monotony; unmarked by forms of living things; and without the promise of a resting place. This weariness, was, however, sometimes unexpectedly relieved by plains of alluvial soil, deposited by the river, in hollows in the wilderness, and covered with gay and gaudy flowering plants.

In the evening, I arrived at the foot of a low range of hills, extending several miles to the west; and, as the river diverged in the same direction, it was natural to suppose that when it had broken through the rocky barrier, it would resume its easterly course, and that my plan was to cross over the hills. I hesitated, however, in doing this, from the fear of not being able to regain the banks of the water, so essential to my safety in a hot and arid country. While tracking a rocky valley, a troop of jackals bounded before me; and in little more than an hour I had gained the crest of the hills, whence a noble prospect opened itself to my view, consisting of a long expanse of green and level valley, occasionally wooded, and watered by the Euphrates, which, as I anticipated, had twined round the hills, and now lay at my feet, scarcely three miles distant.

It was in vain, however, that my aching eyes followed the long line of white light, which the river presented in the hour of eve: no steamer was to be seen, nor a single village, but here and there, aqueducts advanced into the stream, shewing that what was now a wilderness, had been in former times the seat of civilization.

For a moment, my heart almost misgave me. Night was coming on, and had it been an undulating or hilly country, hope would have borne me on over each successive eminence, but here the expanse I had to traverse, without a chance of relief, (and I had had no food all day,) lay before me like the ocean to a shipwrecked mariner. I had, however, the consolation of knowing I could get water, and this had already become more than desirable.

By the time I had descended into the plain, the ardent sun had dipped beneath the horizon. The evening was growing cool and pleasant; and if hitherto my walk had been comparatively solitary, it now became quite the reverse, for the whole plain seemed as if suddenly peopled with living things. Stealthy foxes, of the Tatarian race, came down from the interior, to drink at the river side, quickly putting their tail between their legs and skulking away, when they perceived me in their path. Occasionally, wolves would turn sulkily round, snarling defiance, as if questioning my right to proceed; while numerous jackals bounded along the plain—sometimes in pursuit of each other, anon darting into the woods, then issuing forth again in troops of five or six, dashing up close to me, yelling and gnashing their teeth, or bristling up their backs, like so many angry cats.

Strong as my desire was to drink, it was impossible, under these circumstances, to venture through the thicket to the water's edge; but an opportunity offered, in some shrubs that advanced more inland than the others, of cutting a stick—no very formidable weapon,—but, slight as it was, communicating, in the absence of all other defence, a comfortable idea.