Few people travelling in Egypt or Algeria see the real dweller beneath the tents. There are Bedouins in the cities, and one soon learns to tell them, with their keen eyes, their eager faces, and majestic stride, from the more placid, self-satisfied Egyptian. But in the city he is not his true self, as life in the cities has a permanent and degrading effect on the character and physique of the race; the fire of the desert dies within him. It is in the shifting sands beneath the tents that he is at his best. There he carries out his tribal customs, and there he practises that wonderful virtue of hospitality that Mohammed, himself an Arab, laid upon his people. He said, “Whoever believes in God and the Resurrection must respect his guest; and the time of his being kind to him is one day and night; and the period of entertaining him is three days; and after that if he does it longer, it benefits him more, but it is not right for a guest to stay in the house of a host so long as to incommode him.” It is said that even a deadly enemy may come to the tent and demand water and salt, and it will be given him, and he will be allowed to rest for the night. In the morning he will be sent on his way, and his life is safe until he has passed the boundary of the tribe’s dominions, then his enemy is entitled to follow him and kill him if he can. All tourists passing through Egypt look forward to a few days passed in the desert. The guide paints in glowing colours the wonders of the sands, the colours of the evening sky, the sounds of the hobbled camels as they wait for the morrow’s march, and the traveller from the West decides to see for once the life of which he had read and dreamed so many years. In every soul is a cry for romance, a desire to leave the prosaic everyday life which he knows too well, and explore the mysteries of the unknown, hoping that there by chance he will find food to feed his hungry imagination. A trip to the desert does this for many people. There the broker or the banker, with the wife he has looked upon for many years, sit in front of their hired tent, and watch the camel man, as with scolding voice he prepares the growling, surly camels for the night. When all is quiet but the distant barking of the dogs, they sit in front of the evening fire and watch the stars come out in the sky that seems a great inverted cup of blue above them. The camel drivers, dragomen, and guards sprawl in easy attitudes and chant mournful, weird songs that have come to them from the Persian mystics of olden time. These people from New York or London do not realize that they are not seeing the real desert nor the people of the desert. The setting is all staged most carefully by the wily dragoman, who imports his Bedouins from the neighbouring villages, who dresses tents until they would cause the man who calls them home to stare in blank amazement at their tawdry hangings. The only thing he cannot import is the wonderful dessert