Casting off his garments, Mohammad Ali, always the foremost in cases of difficulty and danger, now seized the end of a rope betwixt his teeth, and, plunging into the river, swam with it to the opposite bank, where it was belayed, upon the principle of the flying bridge, to an overhanging willow--a guy which connected it with each raft serving to counteract the violence of the stream, which, in spite of the heavy rain, had fallen upwards of a foot during the night. Raiment was now discarded by every Dankali, and the work commenced in right earnest, but difficult and laborious indeed was the task before them. The water trickled over their greasy limbs until a late hour of the evening, and the utmost exertions only succeeded in accomplishing the transfer of the endless train to the western bank before nightfall, with the loss of three beasts of burden drowned, and sundry firelocks sunk to the bottom. This latter disaster arose from the spontaneous going to pieces of one of the rudely-lashed rafts, when one of the clumsy followers became entangled in the wreck, and but for the exertions of the son of Ali Abi would inevitably have been lost. The fair Hasseinee was amongst those who were thus cast away in the middle of the deep waters; but hers was not the person to sink, and floating like a Naiad on the surface, with long raven locks streaming over her fat shoulders, the nymph appeared to be in her native element, and was soon shaking her wet petticoat on the opposite shore. The baggage being of necessity divided, and the whole of the native escort as well as the camel-drivers employed in loading and navigating the rafts, it was deemed prudent, in addition to an ostentatious display of rifles on both sides, to make liberal disbursements of blue calico, in order to purchase the neutrality of the Bedouins, who infest the borders of the river. On the division of the party, some of the Adaiel females being separated from their lords, a characteristic trait of Ibrahim Shehem Abli was elicited by the proposal for solution of the old riddle of the three jealous husbands, with their wives, who found on the banks of a rapid stream which they were desirous of crossing, a boat that would contain only three persons, whereas each felt unwilling to abandon his fair partner to the mercy of the other. After puzzling for some time without being able to arrange the transit in a satisfactory manner, "_Murhabba_!" he exclaimed; "had I been one of that same party, I should soon have settled the difficulty by cutting the throats of the two jealous rascals, and taking all their women to myself."