Bitten ly does
JE O
the actual preparations for dismounting; but I was not going
to let him go back to our tents: he was wound up, it would
be simply disastrous to let him unwind again.
" Go on," said I, " I will overtake you.'*
I set off to run back without remembering the dogs, who
seeing a swifdy moving object, flung themselves on me in a
body, and had my skirt in shreds in no time. The tribe
hurled clods of earth and curses, while I stood still among their
unpleasant fangs, and the men drew near, beating their
breasts, with horrified faces.
" That this should have happened in our tents," they
repeated again and again. The dogs turned snarling away.
More annoyed than ever at this conspicuousness, 1 reached
the tent in a grim silence, applied iodine to a slight scratch on
my leg, and took advantage of the general horror, which
kept even the women silent and petrified around me, to get
away as quickly as I could. To keep the dogs off their
visitors is one of the chief preoccupations of the tribal host.
I was always absent-minded, and not inclined to be afraid of
dogs, and gave constant uneasiness; and I would find that on
my most private walks a woman would silently rise and
follow me to keep the dogs away. Now I had actually been
bitten. It was my fault entirely, but that seemed to make
no difference to the feeling that it was a blot on their hospitality.
Only my Philosopher took that side of the question into
consideration when I returned and found him and Sa'id Ja'far
waiting side by side, ready at last.
" Why do you run?" said he, " and get bitten by dogs, so
that I am made anxious a"
The Defile of the Unbelievers
We now rode, in pleasant and restored tranquillity, by the
pomegranate and apricot trees of the hollow, until we left the
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