Our choice of camping-grounds was dictated each night by the presence of water; for despite the steady downpour very little remained upon the surface, and the rain apparently soaks through immediately into the underlying strata, as on the _Causses_ of Auvergne. The water was always muddy and sometimes bitter; but as we invariably boiled it, and kept the beasts away from it till we had filled our kettles, we believe that we swallowed nothing worse than sterilized mud. We used to spread our beds on the lee edge of our waterproof ground sheets, and draw the outer edge over us as an additional protection. But the rain sometimes penetrated everything, and in the morning we would find great pockets of water between the double thicknesses of the waterproof sheets. Decidedly camping-out is an amusement to be practised in the summer when the nights are short, for nights in the open are very tedious. You turn in about seven-thirty, and awake (thinking it nearly dawn) to find that it is eleven. You wake again about two; and then at gradually diminishing intervals, till at last you are rejoiced to find it five-thirty--breakfast time. Once in the middle of the night we were disturbed by one of the horses breaking picket; and the owner arose and gave chase, with frequent ejaculations of _Mashallah_! (Praise God!)--hardly the sort of comment that one would expect from a British dragoon!
In the afternoon of the fourth day the _zaptiehs_ began to hold out hopes to us of lodging that night under shelter; for a big semi-permanent Arab encampment was generally to be found at this stage. And sure enough a little later we were able to make out some eight or nine big black tents, grouped around the remains of a ruined village with the wreck of a castle on its _tel_. Several such ruined villages are found here and there about the desert, but the inhabitants have long since been badgered out of them by Turkish tax-collectors and Arab raiders. The Arabs, though delightful hosts and most romantic features in a landscape, are not desirable neighbours. They submit to no control whatever; and, only a few months before, they had pillaged a Government caravan, which was conveying a big pumping engine to Mosul, and carried off all the gun-metal bearings under the delusion that they were gold![37]