India, some eleven years before, and numerous smaller tents of striped cloth, and certainly not of Arab fashion, clustered around; a lively scene, especially of a clear morning, but requiring some explanation from its exotic and non-Arab character. These tents belonged to the great caravan of Persian pilgrims, on their return from Medina to Meshid ’Alee by the road of Kaseem, and hence all this unusual concourse and bustle. [Picture: An Arab Encampment] “Passing a little on to the east, we left the crowded encampment on one side and turned to enter the city gates. Here, and this is generally the case in the larger Arab towns of old date, the fortifications surround houses alone, and the gardens all lie without, sometimes defended—at ’Oneyzah, for example—by a second outer girdle of walls and towers, but sometimes, as at Bereydah, devoid of any mural protection. The town itself is composed exclusively of streets, houses, and market-places, and bears in consequence a more regular appearance than the recent and village-like arrangements of the Djowf and even of Ha’yel. We passed a few streets, tolerably large but crooked, and then made the camels kneel down in a little square or public place, where I remained seated by them on the baggage, switch in hand, like an ordinary Arab traveller, and Barakat with Mubarek went in search of lodgings. “Very long did the half-hour seem to me during which I had thus to mount guard till my companions returned from their quest; the streets were full of people, and a disagreeable crowd of the lower sort was every moment collecting round myself and my camels, with all the inquisitiveness of the idle and vulgar in every land. At last my companions came back to say that they had found what they wanted; a kick or two brought the camels on their legs again, and we moved off to our new quarters. “The house in question was hardly more than five minutes’ walk from the north gate, and at about an equal distance only from the great market-place on the other side. Its position was therefore good. It possessed two large rooms on the ground story, and three smaller, besides a spacious court-yard, surrounded by high walls. A winding stair of irregular steps and badly lighted, like all in the Nedjed, led up to an extent of flat roof, girt round by a parapet six feet high, and divided into two compartments by a cross-wall, thus affording a very tolerable place for occupation morning and evening, at the hours when the side-walls might yet project enough shade to shelter those seated alongside of them, besides an excellent sleeping place for night.”