198 QUARREL WITH THE NATIVES. the brink, and, giving me their hands, enabled me to reach the summit. Meanwhile, a portion of the earth had fallen from the top of the cabin into the river, and the kandjia began to right herself. I now seized the cord; and, in a short time, we succeeded in keeping her steady while the reis, Suleiman, and the other two Arabs (the man who had fallen overboard having been taken up), cleared off the rest of the earth. Monro and his servant, Abuzaid, returning from some distant village, found us thus engaged; and with their aid (for the trackers were worn out) I at length drew my unfortunate bark, soiled and shattered as she was, round the point which had so long defied our utmost exertions. CXXX. We now proceeded tranquilly, until we arrived in front of the village of El Kotoreh, where we saw a large party of people at work in a field gathering cotton. I was walking along alone, a little behind the trackers, having left Monro, Suleiman, and Abuzaid considerably farther in the rear. In a moment I observed the crew of Monro's kandjia engaged in a violent quarrel with these cotton-gatherers; who had seized upon an old man, the father of the reis, and were, as they pretended, dragging him away across the fields for a soldier.* One of these ruffians, who afterwards proved to be the kiasheff of El Kotoreh, had a musket in his hand; and another, Being past the age of service, this was a mere pretext: the object was to extort from him a few piastres. QUARREL WITH THE NATIVES. 199 after the manner of barbarians, was ostentatiously loaded with pistols. I had unfortunately left my own arms on board; but, provoked at their audacious insolence, I pushed through the crowd, and ran across the field in pursuit of the kiasheff, who was dragging away the old man. Upon my coming near, and speaking in a loud and angry tone, he let go his hold (though he knew not what I said); but appeared to assume an air of authority, presuming, I imagine, upon his musket, and the strength of his party. Having no one near to interpret for me, I walked close up to the kiasheff, and, pronouncing the words Pasha and Firman, took the old man by the arm, and led him back towards the river; no person attempting to interrupt me, though they all followed at a few paces' distance. My dragoman, and the rest of the party, now came running up, and, through them, I inquired into the affair, at the same time threatening the kiasheff that I would immediately write to the Pasha, and have him disgraced. Upon this he grew very civil and humble; said he was merely in jest; and, upon our inquiring why he carried a musket, pretended it was merely to protect from robbers his own people while at work in the fields. However, we learned in his village, in the afternoon, that, having received an order from the mamoor of the district to furnish a certain number of men for the army, he had, to spare his own people, actually set out in the morning on a kidnapping expedition about the banks of the river. CXXXI. Having proceeded, in advance of the boats, a short distance beyond this village, we noticed a very remarkable appearance in the sky, which seemed to portend the approach of a sand-storm; the whole horizon, on the edge of the Libyan desert, being obscured by a dense cloud of a black and lurid colour, flushed with a deep blood-red. Excepting during a typhoon, in the Messenian Gulf, near Cape Matapan, I have never witnessed so awful an atmospheric phenomenon. The wind as yet blew but faintly; still no one could doubt, from the whole aspect of nature, that a hurricane was at hand; and in a few minutes, those big heavy drops, which usually precede a tempest, began to fall. We were out on a bare open country, like a heath; but, at the distance of about half a league, towards the south, there stood a small grove of mimosa trees, towards which we proceeded in all haste for shelter; but had not advanced many paces before the rain descended with great violence; so that, ere we could have reached the wood, we should have been drenched to the skin. In this dilemma (our boats being far behind), nothing was left us but to crouch down beneath the low shelving sand-bank which marked the last rise of the inundation. After remaining a few moments in this position, on lifting up my head, I beheld a spectacle of terrific grandeur: thick driving rain obscured the landscape towards * This term is usually applied to the storms of the Indian Ocean, but is equally applicable to those which vex the narrow and dangerous seas of Greece. the north, east, and south; but, in the west, the whirlwind, having torn up a prodigious quantity of sand in the Libyan desert, was hurling it aloft into the air, in surging volumes, like the smoke of a capital city on fire; darkening the whole face of heaven, and seeming, as it came driving along the plain, to be about to overwhelm and swallow up at once the whole of the cultivated country and the mighty river. In another moment, the sand-storm, mingled with rain, had reached us. The river, the earth, the sky every thing was hidden from our sight. My heart palpitated violently, my lungs seemed as if they would burst; I could scarcely breathe. Lest, therefore, we should be suffocated (as many have been by this desert blast), we wrapped our heads in our cloaks, and, bending down our faces towards the earth, allowed the storm to expend the first blast of its fury before we again dared to look up. Neither of us uttered a word. But, when the low, fearful rustling, which accompanied the passing of the sand, had partly abated, I ventured to address my companion, who, like myself, had experienced a strongly suffocating feeling during the storm, or rather, during the whirling along of the sand-for the tempest still continued in all its fury. We now, however, began to think of our boats. Hastening, therefore, down along the bank, in the midst of torrents of rain, I discovered my kandjia at a distance, drawn close to the shore, and Suleiman, with the reis, and all his crew, arduously engaged in preventing it from being driven 202 TRIFLING LOSSES. out into the river and sunk; for the Nile, vexed by the whirlwind, resembled a tempestuous sea, black with mud, tearing up its banks, and tossing hither and thither our frail bark like a nutshell. Five strong ropes, made fast to different parts of the vessel, and held by the combined efforts of our whole party, were barely sufficient to prevent it from being lost; for, though the heavy rain had beaten down the clouds of sand, the wind appeared to increase in vehemence every moment. CXXXII. How long we remained in this condition I can form no conjecture; but at length, late in the afternoon, the wind abated, the sky cleared up, and the sun shone forth upon the still agitated river. I now found, upon going on board, that the storm, which, as a spectacle, was magnificent beyond description, had done me considerable injury; my books, papers, maps, and bed having been wetted, or covered with ink; and my two coffee-pots-no trifling loss where none could be found to replace them-been thrown overboard. Directing the reis to proceed towards the next village, after ascertaining my losses, I again anded, to spend the remainder of the day in the fields. The greater part of the western plain was here laid out in cotton plantations, which, partly covered with yellow flowers, partly with the bursting snowwhite fruit, had an exceedingly beautiful appearance. The cotton-flower is bell-shaped, not unlike the tulip, though rather smaller, with rich bright yellow petals, |