The latter, who, in some respects, was not unlike the published portraits of his kinsman Zebehr, was at the head of a body of Bedouins, not Soudanese. Each tribe of these wild horsemen is considered to have an exclusive property in a district proportioned to the strength and importance of the tribes, but affording room for migration, which is indispensable among a people whose subsistence is derived from cattle, and the spontaneous produce of the sterile regions they inhabit. Thus they often join neighbouring tribes, Emirs and Sheikhs, in the hope of an advantageous change. In this manner were this Bedouin troop under the banner of Sheikh Moussa. All were thin and hardy men, with the muscles of their limbs more strongly developed than the rest of the body; their strength and activity were great, and their power of abstinence such that, like their own camels, they could travel four or five days without tasting water. Their deep black eyes glared with an intensity never seen in Northern regions, and gave full credence to the marvellous stories Skene had heard of their extraordinary powers of discriminating vision and the acuteness of their other senses. Unlike the nearly nude warriors of the Mahdi, these Bedouins under their floating burnous wore shirts of coarse cotton with wide and loose sleeves--a garment rarely changed or washed. Over this some had a Turkish gown of mingled cotton and silk, but most of them wore a mantle, called an _abba_, like a square, loose sack, with slits for the arms, woven of woollen thread and camel's hair, girt by a girdle, and showing broad stripes of many colours; but trousers of all kinds seemed superfluities unknown. Picturesque looking fellows they were, and reminded Skene of the descriptive lines in Grant's 'Arabia': 'Freedom's fierce unconquered child, The Bedouin robber, nursling of the wild, With whirlwind speed he guides his vagrant band, Fire-eyed and tawny as their subject sand: On foam-flecked steeds, impetuous all advance, Whirl the bright sabre, couch the quivering lance, Or grasping, ruthless, in the savage chase, The belt-slung carbine and spike-headed mace, Ardent for plunder, emulate the wind, Scorn the low level, spurn the world behind; While the dense dust-cloud rears its giant form, And, rolled in spires, revealed the threatening storm.' Malcolm Skene found that he was rather a favourite with these wild fellows from the facility with which he could converse with them in Arabic; and though he knew not the _thousand_ names that language is said to possess for a sword, he could repeat to them the _Fatihat_, or short opening chapter of the Koran, called that of prayer and thanksgiving; and they accorded him great praise accordingly. And, sooth to say, any Christian may repeat it without evil, as it simply runs thus in English: