Part 3, Chapter 14 Summary

Chapter 14, entitled "Fire in the Desert," relates the experience of the Bedouin in contact with Israelis. The first image of fire is the small campfire that nomads light as soon as they stop in a given place, in order to help focus and delimit the vast expanses. Shipler experiences several of these, traveling with Clinton Baily in the Sinai. The world-renowned expert on Bedouin culture, which he sincerely and intimately appreciates, gets lost in a maze of wadis (dry riverbeds). They are led to an oasis by a sixteen-year-old lad named Salim - not given directions, but accompanied and fed over the campfire. At dawn, a father and son approach their resting place on camelback, looking as though they stepped out of the Bible, except for a few accoutrements of modern life that they carry. Driving Baily home, they encounter a...