three o'clock
Whither the Arabs had gone the dragoman could not tell him ; he could only say they came to this plain for the spring pasture ; their summer pastures were elsewhere , and he pointed to an old olive , brown and bent by the wind , telling Owen it was deemed a sacred tree , to which sterile women came to hang votive offerings . Owen reined up his horse in front of it , and they resumed their journey , meeting with nothing they had not met with before , unless , perhaps , a singular group of date-palms gathered together at one spot , forerunners of the desert , keeping each other company , struggling for life in a climate which was not theirs . At eleven o'clock a halt was made in the bed of a great river enclosed within steep mudbanks , now nearly as dry as the river they had crossed in the morning ; only a few inches of turbid water , at which a long herd of cattle was drinking when they arrived ; the banks planted with great trees , olives , tamarisks , and masticks . At three o'clock they were again in the saddle , and they rode on , leaving to the left an encampment -LRB- the dragoman told Owen the name of the tribe -RRB- , some wandering horses , and some camels . The camels , who appeared to have lost themselves , did not gallop away like the horses , but came forward and peaceably watched the cavalcade passing , absent-minded , bored ruminants , with something always on their minds . The sobriety of these animals astonished him . `` They 're not greedy , and they are never thirsty .