Next day he was hawking, and the day after he was again under the tamarisks learning Arabic, and so the days went by between sport and study without his perceiving them until one morning Owen found the spring in possession of a considerable caravan, some five and twenty or thirty camel-drivers and horsemen; and anxious to practise the last phrases he had acquired, he went forward to meet the Saharians, for they were easily recognisable as such by the blacker skin and a pungent blackness in the eyes.  The one addressed by Owen delighted him by answering without hesitation: 

“From Laghouat.”

The hard, guttural sound he gave to the syllables threw the word into wonderful picturesqueness, enchanting Owen.  It was the first time he had heard an Arab pronounce this word, so characteristically African; and he asked him to say it again for the pleasure of hearing it, liking the way the Saharian spoke it, with an accent at once tender and proud, that of a native speaking of his country to one who has never seen it.

“How far away is—?”

Owen tried to imitate the guttural.

“Fifteen days’ journey.”

“And what is the road like?”

With the superlative gesture of an Arab the man showed the smooth road passing by the encampment, moving his arms slowly from east to west to indicate the circuit of the horizon.

“That is the Sahara,” he added, and Owen could see that for the bedouin there was nothing in the world more beautiful than empty space and low horizons.  It was his intention to ask what were the pleasures of the Sahara, but he had come to the end of his Arabic and turned to his dragoman reluctantly.  Dragoman and Saharian engaged in conversation, and presently Owen learned that the birds in the desert were sand grouse and blue pigeons, and when the Saharian gathered that these did not afford sufficient sport he added, not wishing a stranger should think his country wanting in anything: 

“There are gazelles.”

“But one cannot catch gazelles with hawks.”

“No,” the Saharian answered, “but one can catch them with eagles.”

“Eagles!” Owen repeated.  “Eagles flying after gazelles!” And he looked into the Arab’s face, lost in wonderment, seeing a picturesque cavalcade going forth, all the horses beautiful, champing at their bits.

“But the Arab is too picturesque,” he thought; for Owen, always captious, was at that moment uncertain whether he should admire or criticise; and the Arabs sat grandly upright in their high-pummelled saddles of red leather or blue velvet their slippered feet thrust into great stirrups.  He liked the high-pummelled saddles; they were comfortable to ride long distances in, and it was doubtless on these high pummels that the Arabs carried the eagles (it would be impossible to carry so large a bird on a gloved hand); and criticism melted into admiration.  He could see them riding out with the eagles tied to the pummels of their saddles, looking into the yellow desert; the adjective seemed to him vulgar—­afterwards he discovered the desert to be tawny.  “It must be a wonderful sight... the gazelle pursued by the eagle!” So he spoke at once to his dragoman, telling him that he must prepare for a long march to the desert.