2-979-039 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Mid-day Encounter in the Desert, 1857. 'There is a little cloud of dust ahead! The first feelings entertained are alarm; these, however, gradually subside as the strangers draw nigh: they consist of a party of two men mounted each on a camel, and a third on foot with a huge club in his hands - some Arabs belonging to one of the wandering tribes, bound to civilised Egypt on a speculative journey. The long lance or spear, decorated with ostrich and other feathers, denotes the rank of the traveller; a gun and a brace of pistols complete his armament...If we may judge by the astonishment depicted in the countenance of the foot guide, such meetings with human beings in the desert are rare. This party have been so long a stranger to the track of man that the sudden appearance of the travellers' caravan has quite dumfoundered them'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.