Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/161

Rh Jerusalem; or cut off our retreat by the only door now left? This supposition, however, I was relieved to find, on consulting Sheikh Seyd, was not borne out by experience, as the Jeib is nearly always fordable, and falls rapidly after rains have ceased.

After breakfast I sallied forth with Armstrong to examine the ruins described by Canon Tristram, about two miles from our camp. We found a considerable extent of ground occupied with them, and the walls which had enclosed the village on two sides. We also noticed fragments of two or three unfluted columns to which Tristram refers, and large quantities of broken pottery along with pieces of green glass. The pottery had glazed surfaces and rude patterns; but of the age of the village or town we could form little idea. As we were returning we found ourselves in front of a large party of Arab "free-lances," which induced my companion and myself "to put the best leg foremost;" though of course only at a walking pace; and after a stiff trudge over the fields, and a scramble through a thorny hedge, which we performed with the best grace we could muster, we were not sorry to see before us the white tents, which we reached very much "blown." There was nothing to have prevented these men from carrying us off to their mountain prison had they felt inclined to do so; at the same time it is probable they did not contemplate any such outrage.

In the evening a crowd of Arabs surrounded the tents, and by way of a Christmas entertainment, Laurence produced a little galvanic apparatus, and proceeded to operate on our visitors in the usual way, by joining hands or plunging them into the water of a tub into which the ends of the wires were inserted. It was amusing to watch the expression of face and gestures of these wild men when engaged in this performance. They behaved very much like school boys at home on like occasions—jumping, grinning and laughing when they felt a "shock," and evidently much astonished at the wonderful English magician who had come amongst them I This little entertainment put them all in good humour; so much so, that after it was over they came back to request that it might be repeated.

The dinner was the event of the day; and we endeavoured on this occasion to preserve home traditions as far as the circumstances would allow. Abu Miriam was not unequal to the occasion. For a time we forgot the Wilderness and the hawks of Petra, and thought only of home and our relatives, separated from us by a distance of 3,000 miles; and we