Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 200

1881 · 16 pages

This 1881 Beadle and Adams dime novel by Captain Frederick Whittaker follows "The Boy Bedouins," twin brothers Launce and Charley Benton, sons of the American consul in Damascus. The boys are dispatched into the Syrian Desert to find Arabian horses for a Kentucky friend of their father. The narrative details their departure from Damascus with their guide Demetri (a Greek consular cawass armed with multiple revolvers) and four servants with baggage camels, equipped for survival in the arid terrain. Charley is methodical and an excellent marksman; Launce is restless, impetuous, and skilled with sword and lance. Their mission requires meeting Sheik Sotamm of the Roala tribe, an Arab leader indebted to their father. The story emphasizes the brothers' fluency in Arabic and Turkish, their familiarity with desert travel, and the dangerous political dynamics between Arab tribes and Ottoman Turkish authorities in Syria.

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