ourneys be was stopped by a tramp, and, loth to use his
weapon, for he was a Friend, he resorted to stratagem, and gave up his
money at once. Said he to the tramp: 'I must not be thought to have
given up my master's cash without a struggle.' So, taking off his coat
and hat, he said, 'Take a shot at that, friend;' and the robber
complied.

[Illustration: "Give me back my money!"]

'Fire away again,' said the Friend. The thief did so. 'Again,' said the
other.

'I can't,' said the robber; 'I have no more shot.'

'Then,' said the other, producing his own pistol, 'give me back my
money, or I will shoot you myself.'

[Illustration: An Arab Bakery.]

HOW THE ARABS BAKE THEIR BREAD.

The wandering Arabs subsist almost entirely upon bread, wild herbs, and
milk. It is rather strange that they should eat so much bread, because
they never remain sufficiently long in one place to sow wheat and reap
the harvest from it. They are compelled to buy all their corn from the
people who live in towns, and have cultivated fields. When these
townsmen and villagers have gathered in their harvests, the Arabs of the
desert draw near their habitations, and send messengers to buy up corn
for the tribe, and perhaps also to sell the 'flocks' of wool which they
have shorn from their sheep.

Having obtained their supplies of corn, the Arabs return to the deserts
or the open pasture-lands. They always carry with them little
hand-mills, and when bread is to be made, it is the women's duty to
grind the corn. The hand-mills are two stones, the shape of large, thick
cakes, one of which lies upon the top of the other. The stones are about
eighteen inches in diameter, and there is a hole through the centre of
the upper one. A wooden peg, which is stuck upright in a small hole in
the lower stone, projects into the larger hole of the stone above, and
serves to keep it in its proper place. A smaller peg, inserted near the
edge of the upper stone, forms a handle by means of which the whole
stone may be turned round upon the top of the lower stone, and in this
way the faces of the stones are made to grind against each other. The
Arab woman places the mill upon a cloth spread upon the ground, and
taking a few handfuls of corn she pours them into the hole in the centre
of the upper stone, and begins to turn the mill. The grain falls through
the hole, and passes between the two stones, where it is ground into
flour, which flows out all round the mi