He took out of
his pack a copy of the New Testament translated into Arabic.[66] He
read bits out of it and talked to them about the Love of God.
Early next morning, his saddle-bag stuffed with a batch of loaves
which the woman had baked first thing in the morning specially for
him, he set out again.
How could a whole batch of loaves be stuffed in one saddle-bag? The
loaves are flat and circular like a pancake. The dough is spread on a
kind of cushion, the woman takes up the cushion with the dough on it,
pushes it through the opening and slaps the dough on the inner wall
of a big mud oven (out of doors) that has been heated with a fire
of twigs, and in a minute or two pushes the cushion in again and the
cooked bread falls on to it.
So Forder climbed up the mountain track till he came out on the high
plain. He saw the desert in front of him--like a vast rolling ocean of
glowing gold it stretched away and away for close on a thousand miles
eastward to the Persian Gulf. Forder knew that only here and there in
all those blazing, sandy wastes were oases where men could build their
houses round some well or little stream that soon lost itself in the
sand. All the rest was desert across which man and beast must hurry
or die of thirst.
Pages:
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271