s small
donkey with garden produce, forgoes mounting himself on top of all,
and making the little beast stagger along, at a fair pace too, to market?
The life of such a man is not eventful, but what there is of it is good:
he sings as he jogs along in a monotonous tone, and has a word for every
soul he meets, and a laugh too, curses his donkey--he is never quiet--and
lands the produce of his little melon-patch in the market. The melons are
sold by degrees, much gossip is interspersed, possibly he washes and
prays, then eats, and sleeps a little; more gossip, until the sun tells
him it is time to get outside the city gates; and then off he jogs again,
singing, talking, back to the little reed-thatched hut, fenced in by its
hedge of cactus. Life is too full of--call it resignation or content--to
leave room for disturbing speculations, and he is born of a race which
never repines: there is Allah and the One Faith, and the sun to lie down
beneath and meditate and sleep. Not that the typical countryman is
idle--far from it: he is hard-working, without any beer to do it upon.

It is a matter of more speculation as to what the courteous, solemn men,
in turbans like carved snow, whom one meets walking along the beach
telling their beads, or sees sitting in sunshine reading aloud in a low
voice, steadily praising Allah, occupy themselves with from month to
month; or the sleek sheikh--a countryman of some means, with smooth
coffee-coloured face and a haik whiter than an iced birthday
cake--perched between the peaks of his red cloth saddle, under which his
hard, hammer-headed mule paces at an intermittent amble.

Probably the sheikh has ridden out of the city to inspect his crops. His
house, with his wife, he has locked up: the keys are in his pocket. He
swings along a sandy track bordered with cactus, reaches his garden
door, which is painted Reckitt's blue, unlocks it, and, tying his mule
up inside to a fruit-tree, proceeds to inspect his vines and prune
casually some of the ashy-white branches of his fig-trees. Then he sets
two ragged countrywomen to work to cut his vines and hoe his beans. He
may read a few verses of the Kor[=a]n later on. He may sleep. Eventually
he ambles home. Other days he spends among his friends in the city,
sitting in their little shops and gossiping consumedly. He may hire an
empty shop of his own for the same purpose, and turn it into what might
be called "a club." He will pray regularly; will play ch