Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER III. Leaving the International Sanatorium of thePalmera at the hour that Allah willed it, which happened to be about eight in the morning of the 12th October, dressed in Moorish clothes, our faces far too white, and our ample robes like driven snow, the low thick scrub of Argan, dwarf rhododendrons, and thorny sandarac, and " suddra "* bushes after five minutes' riding swallowed us up, quite as effectually as might have done a forest of tall trees. Mohammed el Hosein, fully aware of the importance of getting accustomed to the Moorish clothes before at once emerging on the beaten track which leads from Mogador to Morocco City, engaged us in a labyrinth of cattle tracks, winding in and out for full two hours through stones and bushes, following the beds of water courses, dry with the twelve months' drought, which had caused almost a state of famine, and calling to us to hold ourselves more seemly, not to let our "selhams "t hang too low, not to talk English, and when dismounted to walk as befits Arab gentlemen, to whom time is a drug. * Suddra is the Zizyphus Lotus of botanists. It is extremely thorny, and is much used by the Arabs to make the enclosures known as " Zerebas" round tueir houses; when dry it takes a curious grey-blue tinge, very effective in certain lights. It is of this plant, I think, that the Soudanese make the temporary "Zerebas" round their camps, which on occasions have given so much trouble to our troops. t Selham is the hooded cloak worn as an outer garment; it is made of blue cloth or white wool. It is the ' burnouse " of Algeria. After much threading through the tortuous paths, getting well torn and sunburned by the fierce sun, we emerged at the crossing of the river El Ghoreb, which runs into the sea...

Mogreb-El-Acksa; a Journey in Morocco

Gabriela Cunninghame Graham

Father Archangel of Scotland and Other Essays

Being Some Account of the Jesuits in Paraguay, 1607 to 1767

A Vanished Arcadia

The Scottish Sketches of R.B. Cunninghame Graham

William Henry Hudson

Gauchos of the Pampas and Their Horses

Being the Life of Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada

The Conquest of New Granada

De la Pampa al Magreb

Thirteen Stories

John Walker

An Unpublished Preface

Don Roberto and Cervantes

The Best Short Stories of R. B. Cunninghame Graham

Reincarnation

James N. Alison

Fire from a Black Opal is the fourth of this series of Stories and Sketches. It contains the collections, Charity, A Hatchment and Brought Forward, published between 1912 and 1916, immediately prior to and during the First World War. Cunninghame Graham was by now in his sixties, yet many of the stories demonstrate his amazing powers of recall for the experiences and feelings of his youth. Equally the later stories reveal a close empathy with the terrible demands that the war was making on people of different nations. "Honour and virtue do not of necessity take with them charity; neither can base estate nor any adverse circumstance of life stifle it in the hearts of those, to whom it comes, just as the fire shines out from a black opal, almost without their ken." Charity, Preface. Alan MacGillivray is a specialist in Scottish Literature, who has lectured at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, and is a former President of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies. John C. McIntyre taught Spanish Language and Latin American Literature at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He holds a postgraduate Diploma in Scottish Literature. James N. Alison is a retired HM Inspector of Schools with specialist interests in Scottish literature, children's books and landscapes.

Fire from a Black Opal

Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham

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