Sayfa 5 / 1116

And then a shift of scene. The Shaykhs and "white beards" of the

tribe gravely take their places, sitting with outspread skirts

like hillocks on the plain, as the Arabs say, around the camp

fire, whilst I reward their hospitality and secure its

continuance by reading or reciting a few pages of their favourite

tales. The women and children stand motionless as silhouettes

outside the ring; and all are breathless with attention; they

seem to drink in the words with eyes and mouths as well as with

ears. The most fantastic flights of fancy, the wildest

improbabilities, the most impossible of impossibilities, appear

to them utterly natural, mere matters of every day occurrence.