Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 December 2010
When this day's sun was setting, Mufarrij called me to the Mothîf gallery, where a supper-dish was set before me of mutton and temmn. When 1 came again into the coffee-hall, as the cup went round there began to be questioning among the Beduin guests and those of the castle service, of my religion. I returned early to my beyt, and then I was called away by his servants to see one, whom they named “The Great Sheykh”.— ‘Who was, I asked, that great sheykh?’ they answered “El-Emir!” So they brought me to a dar, which was nearly next by, and this is named Kahwat Abeyd. They knocked and a Galla slave opened the door. We passed in by a short entry, which smelled cheerfully of rose-water, to that which seemed to my eyes full of the desert a goodly hall-chamber. The Oriental rooms are enclosures of the air, without moveables, and their only ornaments are the carpets for sitting-places, here laid upon the three sides of the upper end, with pillowed places for “the Emir“and his next kinsman. All was clay, the floor is beaten clay, the clay walls I saw were coloured in ochre; the sitters were principal persons of the town, a Beduin sheykh or two, and men of the princely service; and bright seemed the civil clothing of these fortunate Arabs.—They had said ‘The Emir’! and in the chief place I saw a great noble figure half lying along upon his elbow!—but had I not seen the Prince Ibn Rashid himself this morning?
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