Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/389

left the Harrân gate at 10 a.m., preceded by our swarthy guide. Husein was highly pleased to have escaped from the town, and on passing the gardens flourished his master's spear, the token of the trust which had been committed to him, and seemed to snuff up with delight the air of his native desert. The ambassador of the chief of a hundred thousand Arabs was dressed in a long shirt, black with dirt, gathered to his waist by an old sword-belt, and on his head he wore the agheil and agheiliyya (the coloured kerchief and camel's-hair rope), which form the usual turban of the Bedooeen. We first journeyed to the southeast towards Harrân, but hearing on the road that Sufoog had moved his position, we turned directly south, having on our right the low Urfah hills, at the foot of which the Jès Arabs were encamped. The plain is bounded on the east by a range of hills called Jebel Taktak, running N.N.E. by S.S.W., which seems to join another range called Garamoosh, lying more to the north, in which a large Armenian village of the same name is situated. The plain is inhabited chiefly by Militsh Coords, whose villages are generally built under the shelter of a mound, of which there are a great number in this district. At noon we reached Telles-Sultân, a village of pyramidal clay huts, which from a distance looked like a collection of white ant hillocks. The villagers had left these habitations, and had sought refuge in their tents from the fleas which infest them, especially during spring. A little beyond we called at the tent of Musto, the chief of the Militsh, whose people Sufoog had charged with having stolen half a dozen horses belonging to his tribe. The authorities at Urfah had sent a mounted kawass, with two of Sufoog's men, to demand the restoration of the plunder; these were quietly smoking their pipes on the ground, but Musto had decamped. At 2 p.m. all cultivation ceased, and we were now entering the desert, the home of the wild descendants of Ishmael. Meeting an Arab who had just come from Racca, he informed us that Sufoog had again moved to the south-east of Harrân; so we altered our course accordingly, and at 5 p.m. came in sight of the encampment, stretching for about four miles along the western bank of the Jullâb, and surrounded by immense droves of camels, sheep, and horses. Husein rode forward to announce our arrival, and soon returned with the Sheikh's welcome, who