One point struck me at once—the difference in point of cleanliness between an encampment of citizens and of Badawin. Poor Mas’ud sat holding his nose in ineffable disgust, for which he was derided by the Meccans. I consoled him with quoting the celebrated song of Maysunah, the beautiful Badawi wife of the Caliph Mu’awiyah. Nothing can be more charming in its own Arabic than this little song; the Badawin never hear it without screams of joy. “O take these purple robes away, Give back my cloak of camel’s hair, And bear me from this tow’ring pile To where the Black Tents flap i’ the air. The camel’s colt with falt’ring tread, The dog that bays at all but me, Delight me more than ambling mules— Than every art of minstrelsy; And any cousin, poor but free, Might take me, fatted ass! from thee.[FN#26]” [p.191] The old man, delighted, clapped my shoulder, and exclaimed, “Verily, O Father of Mustachios, I will show thee the black tents of my tribe this year!” At length night came, and we threw ourselves upon our rugs, but not to sleep. Close by, to our bane, was a prayerful old gentleman, who began his devotions at a late hour and concluded them not before dawn. He reminded me of the undergraduate my neighbour at Trinity College, Oxford, who would spout Aeschylus at two A.M. Sometimes the chant would grow drowsy, and my ears would hear a dull retreating sound; presently, as if in self-reproach, it would rise to a sharp treble, and proceed at a rate perfectly appalling. The coffee-houses, too, were by no means silent; deep into the night I heard the clapping of hands accompanying merry Arab songs, and the loud shouts of laughter of the Egyptian hemp-drinkers. And the guards and protectors of the camp were not “Charleys” or night-nurses.