PLUNDERED BY ARABS. 119

tight and scanty clothes, and has some difficulty in
reconciling himself to them again.” Poor Sonnini
had sufficient reason to lament the loss of his hair
on one occasion. During his passage across a sandy
desert, he fell into the hands of a band of Bedouin
Arabs. They numbered nearly a hundred, while
his own little party consisted of six men only. It
was hopeless to resist, and the unhappy travellers
threw down their weapons. “ Immediately,” says
Sonnini, “they came upon us, and stripped us in
an instant. They left me only my under waist-
coat and my breeches; my companions were
stripped to the shirt. My turban having also been
taken, my head, bare and shaved, was exposed to
the burning heat of the sun, and pained me exces-
sively ; and although 1 covered it as well as I could
with both of my hands, this precaution afforded me
no relief. The booty was spread upon the sand,
and the whole party, not without noisy quarrels,
began to divide the spoil.

“The scene would have furnished a striking
subject for a picture. On one side might have
been represented the gang of robbers covered with
dust, their countenances parched as the sands,
quarrelling about the booty ; in the midst of them
my old servant, endeavouring, with great coolness,
to selze upon some articles of which we had been
plundered, and occasionally making snatches at