Burckhardt, on this occasion, possessed no command over his own movements. He travelled, halted, ate, slept, in obedience to the fantasy of the caravan-leaders; who were ignorant, however, that the humble trader, whom they regarded, at most, with compassion, was at that moment forming reflections, and bringing observations to maturity, which were, perhaps for ages, to affect the opinion entertained by the civilized world of their character and pursuits. Meanwhile the merchants, who were chiefly engaged in the debasing traffic of slaves, and, as may be supposed, cherished no respect for any thing but riches, and the power which commands riches, looked upon their humble companion with undisguised contempt; for imbecility and ignorance are of themselves incapable of appreciating intellectual superiority, and reverence it only when it is exerted for their defence or destruction. The scorn which our traveller entertained for those miscreants was, therefore, just. They constantly treated him with contumely, though he professed a belief in the same law and the same prophets; plundered his water-skins, or obstructed his filling them at the wells, thus exposing him to the danger of perishing of thirst; circulated, in the towns where they stopped, the report that he was a spy; and, in short, put in practice every art which their dastardly malice and shallow brains could conceive, in order to disgust him with the trade, and thus free themselves from a new competitor. But they were slave-dealers: an epithet which comprises every thing most loathsome and abominable; and their manners entirely corresponded with their occupation, being marked by a degree of depravity which language blushes to describe. At the end of a week’s journey, the caravan arrived at the celebrated wells of El Haimar, in the vicinity of which they found the tomb of a Mameluke chief, who died on this spot. “His companions, having enclosed the naked corpse within low walls of loose stones, had covered it over with a large block. The dryness of the air had preserved the corpse in the most perfect state. Looking at it through the interstices of the stones which enveloped it, it appeared to me a more perfect mummy than any I had seen in Egypt. The mouth was wide open, and our guide related that the man had died for want of water, although so near the wells.” Next day they passed Wady Ollaky, a fine valley, extending east and west from the Nile to the Red Sea. Here were numerous trees and excellent pasture; advantages which caused it to be regarded with peculiar veneration by the Bedouins; and every man, as he traversed it on his ass or camel, took a handful of dhourra, and threw it on the ground, as a kind of pious offering to the good genius of the Wady.