And when the steppes became larger still with the blue shadows brought by the night, the caravan came to a halt. Sometimes alone near springs half-covered by sand, sometimes welcomed by an encampment of Beni Hez or Beni Omar. The Bedouins unfolded, as fancy dictated, their black tents of goats' hair, lighted by a thousand holes. The women hastened to prepare the evening meal, and baked gently over the embers the soft, flat loaves. A gigantic cauldron was filled with water, butter and rice--water collected most often in the holes and with which a kitchen-maid in England would have refused to wash her floor, so muddy was it, and butter which a prolonged sojourn in skin bottles had rendered as rancid and bitter as could possibly be desired. All that was boiled pell-mell, and the mud cheerfully incorporated with this mixture. The admirers watched the progress of the cooking and squatted on their left legs, raising their right knee to the height of the chin. They plunged their hands into the dish and drew from it a heap of food, which they threw into the air and dexterously pressed in order to cool it and to make the juice run out of it. And their thumbs adroitly guided the enormous shovelful to its destination. When they were satisfied, they surrendered their places to others, and, after having plunged their greasy fingers into the sand, they passed them nonchalantly over their abayes. For they were dirty, thoroughly dirty; they employed their hands for nameless purposes--such as to wipe their feet when they were wet--while the neighbourhood of springs failed to stimulate them to elementary ablutions. Sometimes there was mutton, sometimes also treacle as dark as raisiné. And always coffee. The person who prepared it ground the berries in a little mortar; at this music the whole camp hurried up. Wiping the cups with an old rag--water is too precious to be wasted--he sent round the bitter and scorching liquid. Lady Stanhope's companions rejoiced greatly at her foresight by which they profited after having complained about it. "Nothing in the world has ever been so well organised," she exclaimed, laughing, "which shows that I am a worthy pupil of Colonel Gordon, for I am at once quartermaster, adjutant and commissary-general. We are living as comfortably as if we were at home, and the Duke of Kent would not give more orders to the minute and would not watch more severely their execution. Really, it is the only way of accomplishing an enterprise of this kind with some pleasure." And the doctor, although pretending to have taken a fancy to camel's milk, was very pleased to have a closed tent and sugar in his coffee.