I concluded that this ruse was being given to intimidate me, but later we experienced something more serious.

The road between Nazzip and Karbilla is supposed to be more safe than the Koofa route, as it is guarded by squads of Turkish cavalry. At noon we changed horses and ate barley cakes for dinner, cooked by slapping the dough on the inside of a heated cement barrel. When we were ready to start again we could not find out why we did not go.

We had now recrossed the desert and descended from the plateau into the valley of the Messopotamia, where our trail ran between the Chebar River and the cliffs on the west. All the while we had been waiting our two drivers had remained on the cliffs, where we could not see them, but I was not nervous, as I had become accustomed to waiting. Our suspicion was not aroused until we started, when the drivers yelled our six-horse team into a wild run, shaking the old crate wagon from side to side, for about five miles, when we heard reports of firearms, and suddenly came to a stop. Then the drivers, together with the passengers, sisters and all, ran up the craggy steeps onto the open plain, where in the distance we saw about ten Bedouins leaning on their horses' necks running for dear life, followed by a squad of Turkish cavalry who were firing at them with no effect, for they were too far away.

I declared at once that it was a plot to frighten me out of the Mohammedan Stamping Grounds, but our guard, who had been riding to the west of our route all day, said that the teamsters who came down with our carry-all from Karbilla a few days previous had killed a camel man of the great herd which we were about to pass through, and that the Bedouins were the dead man's friends from the camel camp, who intended to kill all of us for revenge. Also, that the reason we stayed so long in the night and where we lunched was for the cavalry to arrive from Nazzip to chase the Bedouins away. Then I decided that, if our guard had told the truth, the Arabs were not so bad after all.

We soon struck a herd of about 8,000 camels feeding on the grass and briars along the Shat-El-Chebar. It was a sight to see them, with their two or three hundred Arabian family tents, surrounded by horses, dogs, goats, sheep, chickens and children, leading the sleepy life of our wayside gypsies, seeming to have no inspiration for a change in their condition, as one generation follows another. On each voyage, or tour, said to occupy about five years, they go collecting camels at the round-up on the wilds of the great desert and driving them to Persia, of course selling and trading all the way along the creatures, both human and dumb, reproducing on the way. The pasturage is free but the government taxes are heavy, being nearly fifty per cent of the value of the animal, which is paid in such stock as they own. Arabian herdsmen are generous and hospitable, but, when aroused by what they consider wrong, they are exceedingly ferocious. We camped with them several days, and if I had a better grip on their language I would like to travel a year or two in one of those herdsmen's caravans and write them up as the family from which Abraham was called, for from the time of the historical events of Abraham to now there has probably been little or no change in their daily life. Their helpfulness and hospitality, without expecting recompense, often reminded me of the story of Moses helping the Midian girls to water their flocks.