the chase. After three hours of the moon, Tancred and his companions
rested at a well not far from a village, where they obtained some
supplies. An hour before dawn, they again pursued their way over a rich
flat country, uninclosed, yet partially cultivated, with, every now and
then, a village nestling in a jungle of Indian fig.

It was the commencement of December, and the country was very parched;
but the short though violent season of rain was at hand: this renovates
in the course of a week the whole face of Nature, and pours into little
more than that brief space the supplies which in other regions are
distributed throughout the year. On the third day, before sunset, the
country having gradually become desolate and deserted, consisting
of vast plains covered with herds, with occasionally some wandering
Turkmans or Kurds, Tancred and his companions came within sight of a
broad and palmy river, a branch of the Euphrates.

The country round, far as the eye could range, was a kind of downs
covered with a scanty herbage, now brown with heat and age. When Tancred
had gained an undulating height, and was capable of taking a more
extensive survey of the land, it presented, especially towards the
south, the same features through an illimitable space.

'The Syrian desert!' said Baroni; 'a fortnight later, and we shall see
this land covered with flowers and fragrant with aromatic herbs.'

'My heart responds to it,' said Tancred. 'What is Damascus, with all its
sumptuousness, to this sweet liberty?'

Quitting the banks of the river, they directed their course to the
south, and struck as it were into the heart of the desert; yet, on the
morrow, the winding waters again met them. And now there opened on their
sight a wondrous scene: as far as the eye could reach innumerable tents;
strings of many hundred camels going to, or returning from, the waters;
groups of horses picketed about; processions of women with vases on
their heads visiting the palmy banks; swarms of children and dogs;
spreading flocks; and occasionally an armed horseman bounding about the
environs of the vast encampment.

Although scarcely a man was visible when Tancred first caught a glimpse
of this Arabian settlement, a band of horsemen suddenly sprang from
behind a rising ground and came galloping up to them to reconnoitre and
to inquire.

'We are brothers,' said Baroni, 'for who should be the master of so many
camels but the lord of the Syrian pastures?