Page 242 - Travels in Arabis (Vol I)

Xlll.j TRAVELS IN OMAN. 203

female, chatting and laughing around us with
a vivacity and pleasure proportionate to their
former alarm. They then very obligingly

sent a meal of boiled mutton and rice, suffi­
cient for the whole party.

Saturday, March 5th. We found this morn­
ing that our guard, notwithstanding the posi­
tive directions they received from Sayyid

Hilal at Suwe'ik, to accompany us to Obri, had
decamped during the night with the camels,

camel-men, and old Ali’s ass. I was so much
amused at the ire he displayed, and the curses

he bestowed on them, their fathers, and fore­
fathers, that I forgot our own helpless situation

and detention. However, after breakfast, we
prevailed on the Sheikh to ride over to a small
town in the neighbourhood, where, as a k&-

filah had passed yesterday, it was thought that
others might be procured, and about noon he

returned with as many as we required.
Feletch is most romantically situated in a
hollow, and consists of not more than two

hundred houses interspersed amidst the trees,
which frequently fling their bright green

foliage over or around them, so as to render
but a small portion visible. It is not easy for