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“EOTHEN ;’ OR, TRACES OF ‘TRAVEL BROUGHT. HOME FROM: THE EAST,
‘leave the East without seeing something of the
wandering tribes, but I had looked forward to
this as a pleasure to be found in the desert be-
tween El Arish and Egypt: I had no idea that
the Bedouins on the east of Jordan were accessi-
ble. My delight was so great at the near pros-
pect of bread and salt in the tent of an Arab
warrior, that I wilfully allowed my guide to go
on and mislead me. I saw that he was taking
me out of the straight route toward Jerusalem,
and was drawing me into the midst of the Bed-
ouins, but the idea of his betraying me seemed
(I know not why) so utterly absurd that I could
not entertain it fora moment. I fancied it pos-
sible that the fellow had taken me out of my
route in order to attempt some little mercantile
enterprise with the tribe for which he was seek-
ing, and I was glad ‘of the opportunity which I
might thus gain of coming in contact with the
wanderers,
Not long after passing the village, a horseman
met us. It appeared that some of the cavalry
of Ibrahim Pasha had crossed the river for the
sake of the rich pastures on the eastern bank,
and that this man was one of the troopers, He
stopped and saluted: he was obviously surprised
at meeting an unarmed or half-armed cavalcade,
and at last fairly told us that we were on the
wrong side of the river, and that if we proceeded
we must lay our account with falling among rob-
bers. All this while, and throughout the day,
my Nazarene kept well ahead of the party, and
was constantly up in his stirrups, straining for-
ward, and searching the distance for some ob-
jects which still remained unseen.
For the rest of the day we saw no human be-
ing: we pushed on eagerly in the hope of coming
up with the Bedouins before nightfall. Night
came, and we still went on in our way till about
ten o'clock. Then the thorough darkness of the
night and the weariness of our beasts, which had
already done two good days’ journey in one,
forced us to determine upon coming to a stand-
still. Upon the heights to the eastward we saw
lights; these shone from caves on the mountain-
side, inhabited, as the Nazarene told us, by ras-
cals of a low sort—not real Bedouins — men
whom we might frighten into harmlessness, but
from whom there was no willing hospitality to
be expected.
We heard at a little distance the brawling of
a rivulet, and on the banks of this it was deter-
mined to establish our bivouac. We soon found
the stream, and, following its course for a few
yards, came to a spot which was thought to be
fit for our purpose. - It was a sharply cold night
in February, and when I dismounted I found my-
self standing upon some wet, rank herbage, that
promised ill for the comfort of our resting-place.
Thad bad hopes of a fire, for the pitchy dark-
ness of the night was a great obstacle to any suc-
cessful search for. fuel, and, besides, the boughs
of trees or bushes would be so full of sap in this
early spring that they would not be easily per-
suaded to burn. However, we were not likely to
submit to a dark and cold bivouac without an ef:-
fort, and my fellows groped forward through the
darkness, till, after advancing a few paces, they
were happily stopped by a complete barrier of
dead prickly bushes. . Before our swords could
be drawn to reap this glorious harvest, it was
found, to our surprise, that the precious fuel was
already hewn, and strewed along the ground in
a thick mass. <A spot fit for the fire was found
with some difficulty, for the earth was moist, and
the grass high and rank, - At last there was a
clicking of flint and steel, and presently there
stood out from darkness one of the tawny faces
of my muleteers, bent down to near the ground,
and suddenly lit up by the glowing of the spark
which he courted with careful breath, Before
long there was a particle of dry fibre or leaf that
kindled toa tiny flame; then another was lit
. from that, and then another.; Then small, crisp
twigs, little bigger than bodkins, were laid athwart
the growing fire. ‘The swelling cheeks of the mu-
letcer, laid level with the earth, blew tenderly at
first, and then more boldly, upon the young flame,
which was daintily nursed and fed, and fed more
plentifully when it gained good strength. At
dast a whole armful of dry bushes was piled up
over the fire, and presently, with’ loud, cheery
cracking and crackling, a royal tall blaze shot
up from the earth, and showed me once more
the shapes and faces of my men, and the dim
outlines of the horses and mules that stood graz-
ing hard by.
My servants busied themselves in unpacking
the baggage, as though we had arrived at a ho-
tel; Shereef and his helpers unsaddled their cat-
tle. We had left Tiberias without the slightest
idea that we were to make our way to Jerusalem
along the desolate side of the Jordan, and my
servants (generally provident in those matters)
had brought with them only, I think, some un-
leavened bread, and a rocky fragment of goat’s-
milk cheese. ‘These treasures were produced.
Tea, and the contrivances for making it, were al-
ways a standing part of my baggage. My men
gathered in circle around the fire. The Naza-
rene was in a false position, from having misled
us so strangely, and he would have shrunk back,
poor devil! into the cold and outer darkness, but
I made him draw near and share the luxuries of
the night. My quilt and my pelisse were spread,
and the rest of my party had all their capotes, or
pelisses, or robes of some sort, which furnished
their couches. ‘The men gathered in circle, some
kneeling, some sitting, some lying reclined around
our common hearth. Sometimes on one, some-
times on another, the flickering light would glare
more fiercely. Sometimes it was the good She-
reef that seemed the foremost, as he sat with ven-
erable beard, the image of manly piety—unknow-
ing of all geography, unknowing where he was or
whither he might go, but trusting in the goodness
of God, and the clinching power of fate, and the
good star of the Englishman. Sometimes like
marble, the classic face of the Greek Mysseri
would catch the sudden light, and then again by
turns the ever-perturbed Dthemetri, with his odd
Chinaman’s eyes, and bristling, terricr-like mus-
tache, shone forth illustrious. ‘
I always liked the men who attended me on
these Eastern travels, for they were all of them
brave, cheery - hearted fellows; and although
their following my career brought upon them a
pretty large share of those toils and hardships
which are so much more amusing to gentlemen
than to servants, yet not one of them ever uttered
or hinted a syllable of complaint, or even affected
to put on an air of resignation. I always liked
them, but never, perhaps, so much as when they
were thus grouped together under the light of
the bivouac fire. I felt toward them as my com-
rades, rather than as my servants, and took de-
light in breaking bread with them, and merely
passing the cup.
The love of tea is a glad source of fellow-feel-
ing between the Englishman and the Asiatic: in
Persia it.is drunk by all; and although it is a
luxury that is rarely within the reach of the Os-
manlees, there are few of them who do not know
and.love the blessed ‘‘tchai.” Our camp-ket-
tle, filled from the brook, hummed doubtfully for
awhile, then busily bubbled under the sidelong
glare of the flames; cups clinked and rattled,
the fragrant steam ascended, and soon this little
circlet in the wilderness grew warm and genial
as my lady’s drawing-room.
And after this. there came the chibouque—
great comforter of those that are hungry and
wayworn! And it has this virtue—it helps to
destroy the géne and awkwardness which one
sometimes feels at being in company-with one’s
dependents ; for while the amber is at your lips,
there is nothing ungracious in your remaining si-
lent, or speaking pithily in short inter-whiff sen-
tences, And for us that night there was pleas-
ant and plentiful matter of talk; for the where
we should be on the morrow, and the wherewith-
al we should be fed—whether by some ford we
should regain the western banks of Jordan, or
find bread and salt under the tents of a wander-
ing tribe, or whether we should fall into the hands
of the Philistines, and so come to see death—the
ast and greatest of all ‘tthe fine sights” that
there be—these were questionings not dull or
wearisome to us, for we were all concerned in
the answers, And it was not an ill-imagined
morrow that we probed with our sharp guesses ;
for the lights of those low Philistines—the men
—
‘19
of the caves—still hung over our heads, and we
knew by their yells that the fire of our bivouac
had shown us.
At length we thought it well to seek for sleep.
Our plans were laid for keeping up a good watch
through the night. My quilt and my pelisse and
my cloak were spread out so that I might lie spoke-
wise, with my feet toward the central fire.: I
wrapped my limbs daintily round, and gave my-
self positive orders to sleep like a veteran soldier.
But I found that my attempt to sleep upon the
earth that God gave me was more new and
strange than I had fancied it. I had grown used
to the scene which was before me while I was
sitting or reclining by the side of the fire, but
now that I laid myself down at length, it was the
deep black mystery of the heavens that hung over
my eyes—not an earthly thing in the way from
my own very forehead right up to the end of all
space. I grew proud of my boundless bedcham-
ber. I might have ‘‘ found sermons” in all this
greatness; if I had I should surely have slept, but
such was not then my way, If this cherished
self of mine had built the universe, I ‘should have
dwelt with delight on the ‘* wonders of creation.”
As it was, I felt rather the vainglory of my pro-
motion from out of mere rooms and houses into
the midst of that grand, dark, infinite palace.
And then, too, my head, far from the fire, was
in cold latitudes, and it seemed to me strange
that I should be lying so still and passive, while
the sharp night-breeze walked free over my cheek,
and the cold damp clung to my hair as though
my face grew in the earth, and must bear with
the footsteps of the wind and the falling of the
dew as meckly as the grass of the field. Be-
sides, I got puzzled and distracted by having to
endure heat and cold at the same time, for I was
always considering ‘whether my feet were not
over-devilled, and whether my face was not too
well iced. And so when from time to time the
watch quietly and gently kept up the languish-
ing fire, he seldom, I think, was unseen to my
restless eyes, Yet at last, when they called me,
and said that the morn would soon be dawning,
I rose from a state of half-oblivion not much un-
like to sleep, though sharply qualified by a sort
of vegetable’s consciousness of having been grow-
ing still colder and colder for many and many an
hour,
CHAPTER XUI.
THE DEAD SEA,
Tne gray light of the morning showed us for
the first time the ground which we had chosen
for our resting-place. We found that we had
bivouacked upon a little patch of barley, plainly
belonging to the men of the caves. ‘Ihe dead
bushes which we found so happily placed in readi+
ness for our fire had been strewn as a fence for
the protection of the little crop. This was the
only cultivated spot of ground which we had seen
for many. a Jeague, and I was rather sorry to find
that our night fire and our cattle had spread so
much ruin upon thjs poor solitary slip of corn-
land. , at
The saddling and loading of our beasts was a
work which generally took nearly an hour, and
before this was half over daylight came. We.
could now sec the men of the caves. _ They col-
lected in a body, amounting, I should think, to
nearly fifty, and rushed down toward our quarters
with fierce shouts and yells. But the nearer they
came, the slower they went; their shouts grew
less resolute in tone, and soon ceased altogether.
The fellows advanced to a thicket within thirty
yards of us, and behind this ‘‘ took up their posi-
tion.” My men, without premeditation, did ex-
actly that which was best :. they kept steadily to
their work of loading the beasts without fuss or,
hurry; and whether it was that they instinctive-_
ly felt the wisdom of keeping quiet, or that they
merely obeyed the natural inclination to silence
which one feels in the early morning, I cannot
tell, but I know that, except when they exchanged
a syllable or two relative to the work they were
about, not a word was said. I now believe that
this quietness of our party created an undefined
terror in the minds of the cave-holders, and scared
them from coming on; it gave them a notion
that we were relying on some resources which