I was somewhat fatigued and lay down on my bale. When I awoke I was surrounded by a herd of Arabs, all with their faces in the sand, muttering exhortations. I spoke in their own tongue, commanding the shiek to arise. When he had done so I asked him the cause of this proceeding. He seemed tongue-tied, with hardly strength enough left to point at the feathers of the young bird.
I asked him what that had to do with it, and after about an hour of urging, with the greatest difficulty he told me, but he had to turn his back to the long feathers, for every time his eyes caught sight of them, he wiggled and twisted, gasped and choked, and would have burrowed his head in the sand at my feet if I had not made him stand up straight.
He said he had no words to describe his admiration for a man who could find such feathers. After about another hour he managed to face the feathers again with composure, though he accomplished it by the exercise of great care; he turned but an inch at a time, and first took a very little peek out of the tail of his eye, then one a little larger after he had got over his spasms, and so on until at last he was fairly capable of real thought. Then he begged the privilege of hefting one of them. I handed one to him, whereupon he cried aloud to his followers, who jumped to their feet and began to sing as he waved the feather backward and forward. When he had finished he returned it to me most tenderly and fell upon his face; whereupon the others did likewise.
I again spoke to him, commanding him to rise and command his fellows to do the same. Then I communicated to them my desire to dispose of my stock. They could do nothing but look at me and at the long feathers; not a word did they utter for such a time I became provoked and said if they did not want to buy to begone.
They shook their heads, saying there was no man among them rich enough to buy them. I told them to pile up their money in front of me, that I might know how much they had. I was surprised at the quantity; for it was considerable—as much as I had any particular use for. I divided the bale into equal parts, one for each Arab, and asked them if that was a fair exchange for their money, and I never saw such grinning since I learned to swim.