In crossing the great Plain of Wady esh-Sheikh, in Arabia, _en route_ for Mount Sinai, Sheik Hassan, the chief of a tribe of Tawarahs, invited us to dine at his tent. It was noon when, from the backs of our camels, we espied the encampment to the southward. Nine tents of camel’s hair were arranged in a line, supported by rude poles. Those for the females were impenetrable to the eye of strangers, while those for the males consisted merely of a roof, with the sides and ends open. On reaching the tent prepared for our reception, our camels knelt, we dismounted, and the sheikh’s father, a man of eighty years, rose to greet us, and bowed himself to the ground in an attitude of profound respect.[363] Mats were spread for us to sit upon, and water was brought to wash our hands and feet.[364] To the east of this tented home Hassan’s daughters were keeping his flocks, as Rachel had kept those of Laban nearly forty centuries ago.[365] A young man was sent to the fold to fetch a kid, tender and good, and, having dressed it, carried it into the tent to Hassan’s wife, who cooked it with milk and rice. The rice and meat were brought on two large wooden plates into our tent, and set before us on a small stool less than a foot high. Without knife, fork, or spoon, we returned to the days before the invention of such instruments, and with our fingers begun to eat, while the sheikh respectfully stood up, attentive to our wants.[366] It being a breach of Arab etiquette to inquire after the health of a wife, we were not permitted to ask for Sarah as the angels did.[367] Had the dinner Abraham prepared for the three angels on the plains of Mamre been dramatized, the correspondence could hardly have been more exact. The tent-life; this distant field; the pressing invitation to dine; the water for the ablution of our hands and feet; the going to the field for a kid; handing it to a servant to dress it; the meal itself; the sheikh standing up while we ate; the seclusion of the females gave a lifelike reality to the sacred story. Like the patriarchs of old, these Bedouin sheikhs lead a predatory life, moving their tents from place to place, according to the climate, and the demands of their herds and flocks. But in wealth, in hospitality, in reputation, in purity of character, in devotion, in intellect, in nobility of nature, the modern Arab chief holds no comparison with the exalted nature, the high-toned character, and the Christian-like piety of the prince of the patriarchs.