als would you recommend me to take with me?"

"Beyond all doubt camels are the best. They are used but little in
this country, but come down sometimes with the caravans from Palmyra;
and I believe that there is at present in the town an Arab who
possesses six or seven of them. He came down with the last caravan,
but was taken ill and unable to return with it. Doubtless you could
make a bargain with him. I will send a soldier with you to the house
he occupies."

Jethro found that the man was anxious to return to his own country,
which lay on the borders of Media, and therefore directly in the
direction which Jethro wished to travel. He was, however, unwilling to
undertake the journey except with a caravan, having intended to wait
for the next however long the time might be; but the sum that Jethro
offered him for the hire of his animals as far as Palmyra at last
induced him to consent to make the journey at once, bargaining,
however, that a party of ten armed men should be hired as an escort as
far as the borders of Moab. Highly pleased with the result of his
inquiries, Jethro returned home and told his companions the
arrangements he had made.

"I have only arranged for our journey as far as Palmyra," he said, "as
it would have raised suspicion had I engaged him for the whole journey
to Media; but of course he will gladly continue the arrangement for
the whole journey. He has bargained for an escort of ten men, but we
will take twenty. There is ample store of your father's gold still
unexhausted; and, indeed, we have spent but little yet, for the sale
of our goods when we left the boat paid all our expenses of the
journey up the Nile. Therefore, as this seems to be the most hazardous
part of our journey, we will not stint money in performing it in
safety. I have told him that we shall start in a week's time. It would
not do to leave earlier. You must not recover too rapidly from your
illness. In the meantime I will make it my business to pick out a
score of good fighting men as our escort."

In this the Egyptian captain was of use, recommending men whose
families resided in AElana, and would therefore be hostages for their
fidelity. This was necessary, for no small portion of the men to be
met with in the little town were native tribesmen who had encamped at
a short distance from its walls, and had come in to trade in horses or
the wool of their flocks for the cloths of Egypt. Such men as these
would have been a sou