WADY DJEREIMELE. 
519 
me without my perceiving him. I do not know how long he had 
remained there, but suddenly lifting up my cloak, he detected me 
with the book in my hand.* What is this?” he exclaimed. 
« What are you doing? I shall not make you answerable for it at 
present, because I am your companion; but I shall talk further to 
you about it when we are at the convent.” I made no answer, till 
we returned to the halting-place, when I requested him to tell 
me what further he had to say.“ You write down our country,” he 
replied, in a passionate tone, “ our mountains, our pasturing 
places, and the rain which falls from heaven; other people have 
done this before you, but I at least will never become instrumental 
to the ruin of my country.” I assured him that I had no bad in 
tentions towards the Bedouins, and told him he must be convinced 
that I liked them too well for that ; “ on the contrary,” I added, 
« had I not occasionally written down some prayers ever since 
we left Taba, we should most certainly have been all killed ; 
and it is very wrong in you to accuse me of that, which if I had 
omitted, would have cost us our lives.” He was startled at this re 
ply, and seemed nearly satisfied. * Perhaps you say the truth, 
he observed ; “ but we all know that some years since several men, 
God knows who they were, came to this country, visited the moun 
tains, wrote down every thing, stones, plants, animals, even ser 
pents and spiders, and since then little rain has fallen, and the 
game has greatly decreased.” The same opinions prevail in these 
mountains, which I have already mentioned to be current among 
the Bedouins of Nubia ; they believe that a sorcerer, by writing 
down certain charms, can stop the rains and transfer them to his own 
country. The travellers to whom Ayd alluded were M. Seetzen, 
who visited Mount Sinai eight years since, and M. Agnelli, who 
ten years ago travelled for the Emperor of Austria, collecting spe¬