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TUAV]:i> AND MOUNTAINEERING IN SUANETIA 231
comparison : tirst to some woodcut familiar in childhood, an illus-
tration to Lane's Arabian Niyhts, then to Tuscan San Gimignano.
We hurried on towards these habitations with all the eagerness
of men who have been rained on for several days, and have had
little to eat or drink lieyond high sheeps-brains, wild raspberries,
and water flavoured with the dregs of tea-leaves. In 18G8 our tent
was not waterproof, and our commissariat was simple in the
extreme.^ We found quarters in a barn slightly above the village,
a gloomy building without windows. Many of the houses at
Ushkul have no windows, and depend for light on what can pass
throutdi the chinks between the unmortared stones of the walls.
In this gloomy lodging we spent two nights and a day, surrounded
by the most savage and dangerous-looking set of people
I have ever
come across, outside Arabia. The men went about armed with
flint-lock guns and pistols; even the small boys carried daggers.
Their arms seemed almost their only possessions; their clothes
I I observe that a recent traveller, Mr. Trevor-Battye, says of Whyinper tents, 'to
pretend that they are waterproof is not even reasonable humour.' The last I hail proved
perfectly waterproof under the most severe trials possible in a temperate zone. It was luade
by Messrs. Silver, of Willesden canvas.