THROUGH THE CENTRAL SANDS

happily the last two eluded me. The wolf is said to be small
and sand-coloured, and to live chiefly in Suwahib, where it
can readily paw a hole to shallow water.

Among reptiles there were twelve varieties of lizards, all
alike endowed with pointed snouts for diving in the sands.
The most numerous sort was a skink, with a sand-coloured
square-sectioned body, and black markings along its sides.
Its smooth, shining, snake-like skin did not dissuade one
Arab from indulging a childish trick of putting the
wriggling tail and half its body into his mouth. The
biggest lizard was a monitor, much too strong and vicious
to be handled except by being picked up, like a snake,
behind the head. The monitor, unlike most of the big
lizards of the steppe, is not eaten by Badawin. On cutting
one open, I found a skink almost his own size within. The
scorpions of the sands were small and of pale green colour
in contrast to the big black-and-white varieties of the
mountains and steppes. Only three different snakes were
met with-all of a sand colour, boa, horned viper, and
colubrid.

The stimulus of promised rewards made my Arabs
enthusiastic workers for the Museum. Their reduced
numbers on this northward journey allowed me to get to
know them individually in a way that had been impossible
with my earlier and bigger parties. The Badu - unless
a religious bigot, in which case he is secretive and sullen -
can be a most pleasant companion if you will but simulate a
passion for saddle and rifle, praise the virtues of camels and
be cheerful. Distant at first, he will after a week or so
become, if cultivated, a cheerful fraterniser, and if there is
something he wants, ingratiating. His conversations, how-
ever, are liberally interspersed with the woes it has pleased

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