And besides flowers there were roots, remarkably good to eat, that the Syrians called "daughters of thunder," saying that was the local name.

Tugendheim called them truffles.

A little water and that desert would be fertile farm-land, or I never saw corn grow! Ranjoor Singh conversed with Abraham until we entered a defile between the hills; and that night we camped in a little valley with our outposts in a ring around us, Ranjoor Singh sitting by a bright fire half-way up the side of a slope where he could overlook us all and be alone.

We had seen mounted men two or three times that day, they mistaking us perhaps for Turkish troops, for they vanished after the first glimpse.

Nevertheless, we tethered our horses close in the valley bottom, and lay around them, ready for all contingencies.
I remember that night well, for it was the first since we started eastward in the least to resemble our Indian nights.