Sunday. We spend the entire afternoon shooting birds of prey along the Aqueduct of Pharaoh. Whitish dogs looking like wolves, pointed ears, haunt those stinking areas; they dig holes in the sand, nests where they sleep - carcasses of camels, horses and donkeys; some of them have their muzzle all purple with clotted blood, baked by the sun. Pregnant females trot around with their big belly; according to their individual character they bark acrimoniously or move away to let us pass. A dog from another tribe is unwelcome when coming into an alien tribe. Hoopoes with their long beak are pecking worms between the ribs of the carcasses - the ribs of the camel, flat and strong, look like the branches of a palm tree, denuded of its leaves and curved. A caravan of fourteen camels passes along the aqueduct while I’m watching the vultures - the bright sun makes the carcasses smell, the dogs sleep while digesting, or quietly shred away.

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Whores. The whores usually stand by the Aqueduct, and engage in love making for a few paras. Maxime while hunting disturbed a group, and I treat our three donkey-men to a feast of Venus for about sixty paras. A few soldiers and some women were smoking at the feet of the arches and eating oranges; one of them up in the aqueduct was keeping watch. I’ll never forget the sharp movement of the old man falling on the girl, holding her with his right hand, fondling her breasts with his left and pulling her in one movement, with his big white teeth laughing - his small black shibook on his back - and the rags rolled down his swollen legs.