Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/268

254 That this is not an exaggerated impression of the risk we ran, could be shown by the experience of any number of travellers. When I was at Damascus, dining one day at the house of the missionary, Rev. Mr. Crawford, he related his experience. It was in the Summer-time, and his family were away from the city at a retreat in the mountains, where he was to join them, and for the pleasure of the excursion had started on foot. Stopping for a few minutes at a spring by the wayside, suddenly a party of Bedaween came upon him, and seizing him roughly, demanded "Where's your money?" That taken, they relieved him of his watch, and then began to disrobe him, one taking his hat and another his coat. When it came to his waistcoat, he mildly remonstrated, saying that "it would be of no use to them, and they had better leave it to him," to which one replied by striking him on the mouth. By this time he was in a dilapidated condition, when one came up, and seeing that he still had shoes on his feet, ordered him to take them off. If any fiery but foolish American wonders how he could submit to this without resistance, I answer, The robbers were fifteen to one, and this submission was his only safety. He said "I generally carried a revolver on such excursions, but this time I had left it at home, and to this probably I owed my life. If I had had it, the impulse would have been to seize it and fire, when I should have been run through the body in an instant." As it was, his life was spared, and they left, as garments to cover him, his shirt, pantaloons, and stockings! All this scene took place near a threshing-floor, where men were working, but who did not dare to interfere. As soon as the robbers were gone, they took pity on him who had fallen among thieves, and let him sleep on their threshing-floor, and provided him in the morning with an Arab costume, which he put on, and a few hours after presented himself to his wife arrayed as she had never seen him before.