

Transcribed from the 1864 Chapman and Hall “Tales of All Countries”
edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org





                         A RIDE ACROSS PALESTINE.


CIRCUMSTANCES took me to the Holy Land without a companion, and compelled
me to visit Bethany, the Mount of Olives, and the Church of the Sepulchre
alone.  I acknowledge myself to be a gregarious animal, or, perhaps,
rather one of those which nature has intended to go in pairs.  At any
rate I dislike solitude, and especially travelling solitude, and was,
therefore, rather sad at heart as I sat one night at Z—’s hotel, in
Jerusalem, thinking over my proposed wanderings for the next few days.
Early on the following morning I intended to start, of course on
horseback, for the Dead Sea, the banks of Jordan, Jericho, and those
mountains of the wilderness through which it is supposed that Our Saviour
wandered for the forty days when the devil tempted him.  I would then
return to the Holy City, and remaining only long enough to refresh my
horse and wipe the dust from my hands and feet, I would start again for
Jaffa, and there catch a certain Austrian steamer which would take me to
Egypt.  Such was my programme, and I confess that I was but ill contented
with it, seeing that I was to be alone during the time.

I had already made all my arrangements, and though I had no reason for
any doubt as to my personal security during the trip, I did not feel
altogether satisfied with them.  I intended to take a French guide, or
dragoman, who had been with me for some days, and to put myself under the
peculiar guardianship of two Bedouin Arabs, who were to accompany me as
long as I should remain east of Jerusalem.  This travelling through the
desert under the protection of Bedouins was, in idea, pleasant enough;
and I must here declare that I did not at all begrudge the forty
shillings which I was told by our British consul that I must pay them for
their trouble, in accordance with the established tariff.  But I did
begrudge the fact of the tariff.  I would rather have fallen in with my
friendly Arabs, as it were by chance, and have rewarded their fidelity at
the end of our joint journeyings by a donation of piastres to be settled
by myself, and which, under such circumstances, would certainly have been
as agreeable to them as the stipulated sum.  In the same way I dislike
having waiters put down in my bill.  I find that I pay them twice over,
and thus lose money; and as they do not expect to be so treated, I never
have the advantage of their civility.  The world, I fear, is becoming too
fond of tariffs.

“A tariff!” said I to the consul, feeling that the whole romance of my
expedition would be dissipated by such an arrangement.  “Then I’ll go
alone; I’ll take a revolver with me.”

“You can’t do it, sir,” said the consul, in a dry and somewhat angry
tone.  “You have no more right to ride through that country without
paying the regular price for protection, than you have to stop in Z—’s
hotel without settling the bill.”

I could not contest the point, so I ordered my Bedouins for the appointed
day, exactly as I would send for a ticket-porter at home, and determined
to make the best of it.  The wild unlimited sands, the desolation of the
Dead Sea, the rushing waters of Jordan, the outlines of the mountains of
Moab;—those things the consular tariff could not alter, nor deprive them
of the glories of their association.

I had submitted, and the arrangements had been made.  Joseph, my
dragoman, was to come to me with the horses and an Arab groom at five in
the morning, and we were to encounter our Bedouins outside the gate of
St. Stephen, down the hill, where the road turns, close to the tomb of
the Virgin.

I was sitting alone in the public room at the hotel, filling my flask
with brandy,—for matters of primary importance I never leave to servant,
dragoman, or guide,—when the waiter entered, and said that a gentleman
wished to speak with me.  The gentleman had not sent in his card or name;
but any gentleman was welcome to me in my solitude, and I requested that
the gentleman might enter.  In appearance the gentleman certainly was a
gentleman, for I thought that I had never before seen a young man whose
looks were more in his favour, or whose face and gait and outward bearing
seemed to betoken better breeding.  He might be some twenty or twenty-one
years of age, was slight and well made, with very black hair, which he
wore rather long, very dark long bright eyes, a straight nose, and teeth
that were perfectly white.  He was dressed throughout in grey tweed
clothing, having coat, waistcoat, and trousers of the same; and in his
hand he carried a very broad-brimmed straw hat.

“Mr. Jones, I believe,” he said, as he bowed to me.  Jones is a good
travelling name, and, if the reader will allow me, I will call myself
Jones on the present occasion.

“Yes,” I said, pausing with the brandy-bottle in one hand, and the flask
in the other.  “That’s my name; I’m Jones.  Can I do anything for you,
sir?”

“Why, yes, you can,” said he.  “My name is Smith,—John Smith.”

“Pray sit down, Mr. Smith,” I said, pointing to a chair.  “Will you do
anything in this way?” and I proposed to hand the bottle to him.  “As far
as I can judge from a short stay, you won’t find much like that in
Jerusalem.”

He declined the Cognac, however, and immediately began his story.  “I
hear, Mr. Jones,” said he, “that you are going to Moab to-morrow.”

“Well,” I replied, “I don’t know whether I shall cross the water.  It’s
not very easy, I take it, at all times; but I shall certainly get as far
as Jordan.  Can I do anything for you in those parts?”

And then he explained to me what was the object of his visit.  He was
quite alone in Jerusalem, as I was myself; and was staying at H—’s hotel.
He had heard that I was starting for the Dead Sea, and had called to ask
if I objected to his joining me.  He had found himself, he said, very
lonely; and as he had heard that I also was alone, he had ventured to
call and make his proposition.  He seemed to be very bashful, and half
ashamed of what he was doing; and when he had done speaking he declared
himself conscious that he was intruding, and expressed a hope that I
would not hesitate to say so if his suggestion were from any cause
disagreeable to me.

As a rule I am rather shy of chance travelling English friends.  It has
so frequently happened to me that I have had to blush for the
acquaintances whom I have selected, that I seldom indulge in any close
intimacies of this kind.  But, nevertheless, I was taken with John Smith,
in spite of his name.  There was so much about him that was pleasant,
both to the eye and to the understanding!  One meets constantly with men
from contact with whom one revolts without knowing the cause of such
dislike.  The cut of their beard is displeasing, or the mode in which
they walk or speak.  But, on the other hand, there are men who are
attractive, and I must confess that I was attracted by John Smith at
first sight.  I hesitated, however, for a minute; for there are sundry
things of which it behoves a traveller to think before he can join a
companion for such a journey as that which I was about to make.  Could
the young man rise early, and remain in the saddle for ten hours
together?  Could he live upon hard-boiled eggs and brandy-and-water?
Could he take his chance of a tent under which to sleep, and make himself
happy with the bare fact of being in the desert?  He saw my hesitation,
and attributed it to a cause which was not present in my mind at the
moment, though the subject was one of the greatest importance when
strangers consent to join themselves together for a time, and agree to
become no strangers on the spur of the moment.

“Of course I will take half the expense,” said he, absolutely blushing as
he mentioned the matter.

“As to that there will be very little.  You have your own horse, of
course?”

“Oh, yes.”

“My dragoman and groom-boy will do for both.  But you’ll have to pay
forty shillings to the Arabs!  There’s no getting over that.  The consul
won’t even look after your dead body, if you get murdered, without going
through that ceremony.”

Mr. Smith immediately produced his purse, which he tendered to me.  “If
you will manage it all,” said he, “it will make it so much the easier,
and I shall be infinitely obliged to you.”  This of course I declined to
do.  I had no business with his purse, and explained to him that if we
went together we could settle that on our return to Jerusalem.  “But
could he go through really hard work?” I asked.  He answered me with an
assurance that he would and could do anything in that way that it was
possible for man to perform.  As for eating and drinking he cared nothing
about it, and would undertake to be astir at any hour of the morning that
might be named.  As for sleeping accommodation, he did not care if he
kept his clothes on for a week together.  He looked slight and weak; but
he spoke so well, and that without boasting, that I ultimately agreed to
his proposal, and in a few minutes he took his leave of me, promising to
be at Z—’s door with his horse at five o’clock on the following morning.

“I wish you’d allow me to leave my purse with you,” he said again.

“I cannot think of it.  There is no possible occasion for it,” I said
again.  “If there is anything to pay, I’ll ask you for it when the
journey is over.  That forty shillings you must fork out.  It’s a law of
the Medes and Persians.”

“I’d better give it you at once,” he said again, offering me money.  But
I would not have it.  It would be quite time enough for that when the
Arabs were leaving us.

“Because,” he added, “strangers, I know, are sometimes suspicious about
money; and I would not, for worlds, have you think that I would put you
to expense.”  I assured him that I did not think so, and then the subject
was dropped.

He was, at any rate, up to his time, for when I came down on the
following morning I found him in the narrow street, the first on
horseback.  Joseph, the Frenchman, was strapping on to a rough pony our
belongings, and was staring at Mr. Smith.  My new friend, unfortunately,
could not speak a word of French, and therefore I had to explain to the
dragoman how it had come to pass that our party was to be enlarged.

“But the Bedouins will expect full pay for both,” said he, alarmed.  Men
in that class, and especially Orientals, always think that every
arrangement of life, let it be made in what way it will, is made with the
intention of saving some expense, or cheating somebody out of some money.
They do not understand that men can have any other object, and are ever
on their guard lest the saving should be made at their cost, or lest they
should be the victims of the fraud.

“All right,” said I.

“I shall be responsible, Monsieur,” said the dragoman, piteously.

“It shall be all right,” said I, again.  “If that does not satisfy you,
you may remain behind.”

“If Monsieur says it is all right, of course it is so;” and then he
completed his strapping.  We took blankets with us, of which I had to
borrow two out of the hotel for my friend Smith, a small hamper of
provisions, a sack containing forage for the horses, and a large empty
jar, so that we might supply ourselves with water when leaving the
neighbourhood of wells for any considerable time.

“I ought to have brought these things for myself,” said Smith, quite
unhappy at finding that he had thrown on me the necessity of catering for
him.  But I laughed at him, saying that it was nothing; he should do as
much for me another time.  I am prepared