Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/263

256 CHAPTER X. FROM ARRABEH TO NABLÛS.

the little boys went with me into the divan, where my brother sat, surrounded by effendis and young men of the Abdul Hady family. He had dismissed the guide who had conducted us to Arrabeh, and decided to travel without one. We were safer alone. It might have compromised us to have in our party any one who had been engaged in the late skirmishes, or who belonged to a faction.

It was pouring with rain when we started; but the sun shone now and then, tracing vivid rainbows in the clouds. The undulating highlands which we traversed reminded me of the Sussex downs; while beyond them bare rocks and rugged slopes appeared. Far away on the right, the Mediterranean could be seen, between grayish-blue hills. Occasionally we passed quite an English-looking bank of grass and wild flowers; and wherever the poterium spinosum grew, it sheltered the sweetwilliam, the Chinese pink, and the forget-me-not. We rode over a large, well-cultivated plain, and met two horsemen, who courteously exchanged salutations with us, and then said, "What is the news?" and "Whence do you come?"

Rain fell heavily, as we rode on to a steep ridge, which commanded a view of the fortress of Senûr. It stands on the summit of a seemingly-inaccessible hill, of conical form. The road down the southern side of the ridge was so very difficult and dangerous for horses, that we, and even the Arabs, dismounted, and the animals were unwillingly dragged or urged along. We made our way cautiously, stepping, and sliding, and leaping by turns over the loosened stones and smooth slabs of rock; sometimes