extravagant sum for purchasing all the wealth of Ophir.

92. Haji Wali Again.

At Zagazig they were joined by the venerable wag and trickster,
Haji Wali, and having reached Suez they embarked on the gunboat, the
"Mukhbir," for Moilah, which they reached on December 19th. Burton
landed with studied ceremony, his invariable plan when in the midst of
savage or semi-civilised people. The gunboat saluted, the fort answered
with a rattle and patter of musketry. All the notables drew up in line
on the shore. To the left stood the civilians in tulip-coloured garb,
next were the garrison, a dozen Bashi-Bazouks armed with matchlocks,
then came Burton's quarry men; and lastly the escort--twenty-five
men--held the place of honour on the right; and as Burton passed he was
received with loud hurrahs. His first business was to hire three
shaykhs and 106 camels and dromedaries with their drivers. The party was
inclined to be disorderly, but Burton, with his usual skill in managing
men, soon proved who was master.

Nothing if not authoritative, he always spoke in the commanding voice
of a man who brooks no denial, and, as he showed plainly that acts would
follow words, there was thenceforward but trifling trouble. He himself
was in ecstasies. The Power of the Hills was upon him.

93. Graffiti.

The exploration was divided into three journeys, and between each and
the next, the expedition rested at Moilah. The first or northward had
scarcely begun, indeed, they had not no further than Sharma, before Haji
Wali found it convenient to be troubled with indigestion in so violent
a form as to oblige him to return home, which he straightway did with
great alacrity. His object in accompanying the expedition even thus far
is not clear, but he evidently got some payment, and that the expedition
was a hopeless one he must have known from the first. The old rogue
lived till 3rd August 1883, but Burton never again met him.

Even in Midian, Burton was dogged by Ovid, for when he looked round
at the haggard, treeless expanse he could but exclaim, quoting the Ex
Ponto,

"Rara neque haec felix in apertis eminet arvis
Arbor, et in terra est altera forma maris."

["Dry land! nay call it, destitute of tree,
Rather the blank, illimitable sea."]

[307] The expedition then made for Maghair Shu'ayb, the Madiama of Ptolemy
and the old capital of the land. Here they spent a "silly fortnight,
searching for gold," which re