554 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER
camels ;^ain on me fo much in my ft ate of lamenefs, that it was With fome diificuky I couid overtake them.
The efFevfh this ftupendoiis fight had upon Idris was to fet hiin to his prayers, indeed rather to his charms ; for, befides the name of God and Mahomet, all the reft of the words were mere gibberiih and nonfenfe. This created a violent altercation between him and Ifmael the Turk, who abufed him for not praying in the words of the Koran, main- taining, with apparent great wifdom at the fame time, that nobody had charms to ftop thefe moving fands but the in-, habitants of Arabia Deferta,.
The Arabs to whom this inhofpitable fpot belongs are the Adelaia. They, too, are Jahelcen, or Arabs of Beni Ko- reifh. They are faid to be a harmlefs .race, and to do no hurt to the caravans they meet; yet I very much doubt, had we fallen in with them they would not have deferved' the good name that was given them. We went very flow^ ly to-day, our feet being fore and greatly fwelled. The whole of our company were much diftieartened, (except- Idris) and imagined that they were advancing into whirl- winds of moving fand, from which they fliould never be able to extricate themfelves ; but before four o'clock in the afternoon thefe phantoms of the plain had all of them fallen to the ground and difappeared. In the evening we cam.e to Waadi Dimokea, where we pafTed the night, much, difheartened, and our fear more increafed, when v/e found,, upon wakening in the morning, that one fide was perfedly buried in the £and that the wind had blown above us ij?, the nightv
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