Again they caught sight of Arab
fires in the morning like a mist, at night lighting up the horizon;
and a few days afterwards they were riding through an oak forest
whose interspaces were surprisingly like the tapestries at
Riversdale, only no archer came forward to shoot the stag; and he
listened vainly, for the sounds of hunting horns.
On debouching from the forest they passed through pleasantly watered
valleys, the hillsides of which were cultivated. It was pleasant to
see fields again, though they were but meagre Arab fields. All the
same Owen was glad to see the blue shadows of the woods marking the
edge of these fields, for they carried his thoughts back to England,
to his own fields, and in his mood of mind every remembrance of
England was agreeable. He was beginning to weary of wild nature, so
it was pleasant to see an Arab shepherd emerge from the scrub and
come forward to watch for a moment and then go away to the edge of a
ravine where his goats were browsing, and sit upon a rock, followed
by a yellow dog with a pointed face like a fox. It was pleasant,
too, to discover the tents of the tribe at a little distance, and
the next day to catch sight of a town, climbing a hill so steep that
it was matter for wonderment how camels could be driven through the
streets.
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