A Ride Across Palestine | Page 4

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,