In order to allay his fears Mr. Browne dismounted and
walked up to him, whilst I kept back. On this the poor fellow began to
dance, and to call out most vehemently, but finding that all he could do
was to no purpose he sat down and began to cry. We managed however to
pacify him, so much that he mustered courage to follow us, with his two
companions, to our halting place. These wanderers of the desert had their
bags full of jerboas which they had captured on the hills. They could not
indeed have had less than from 150 to 200 of these beautiful little
animals, so numerous are they on the sand hills, but it would appear that
the natives can only go in pursuit of them after a fall of rain, such as
that we had experienced. There being then water, the country, at other
times impenetrable, is then temporarily thrown open to them, and they
traverse it in quest of the jerboa and other quadrupeds. Our friends
cooked all they had in hot sand, and devoured them entire, fur, skin,
entrails and all, only breaking away the under jaw and nipping off the
tail with their teeth.
They absolutely managed before sunset to finish their whole stock, and
then took their departure, having, I suppose, gratified both their
appetite and their curiosity. They were all three circumcised and spoke a
different language from that of the hill natives, and came, they told us,
from the west.
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