te to
Zeyd in all his sparing policy.

Our _menzil_ now standing, the men step over to Zeyd's coffee-fire,
if the _sheykh_ be not gone forth to the _mejlis_ to drink his
mid-day cup there. A few gathered sticks are flung down beside the
hearth; with flint and steel one stoops and strikes fire in tinder,
he blows and cherishes those seeds of the cheerful flame in some
dry camel-dung, sets the burning shred under dry straws, and
powders over more dry camel-dung. As the fire kindles, the _sheykh_
reaches for his _dellal_, coffee pots, which are carried in the
_fatya_, coffee-gear basket; this people of a nomad life bestow
each thing of theirs in a proper _beyt_; it would otherwise be lost
in their daily removings. One rises to go to fill up the pots at
the water-skins, or a bowl of water is handed over the curtain from
the woman's side; the pot at the fire, Hirfa reaches over her
little palm-ful of green coffee berries.... These are roasted and
brayed; as all is boiling he sets out his little cups, _fenjeyl_
(for fenjeyn). When, with a pleasant gravity, he has unbuckled his
_gutia_ or cup-box, we see the nomad has not above three or four
fenjeyns, wrapt in a rusty clout, with which he scours them busily,
as if this should make his cups clean. The roasted beans are
pounded amongst Arabs with a magnanimous rattle--and (as all their
labor) rhythmical--in brass of the town, or an old wooden mortar,
gaily studded with nails, the work of some nomad smith. The water
bubbling in the small _dellal_, he casts in his fine coffee powder,
_el-bunn_, and withdraws the pot to simmer a moment. From a knot in
his kerchief he takes then a head of cloves, a piece of cinnamon or
other spice, _bahar_, and braying these he casts their dust in
after. Soon he pours out some hot drops to essay his coffee; if the
taste be to his liking, making dexterously a nest of all the cups
in his hand, with pleasant clattering, he is ready to pour out for
all the company, and begins upon his right hand; and first, if such
be present, to any considerable _sheykh_ and principal persons. The
_fenjeyn kahwah_ is but four sips; to fill it up to a guest, as in
the northern towns, were among Bedouins an injury, and of such
bitter meaning, "This drink thou and depart."

[Illustration: NUBIA