er the tent with ourselves. They
were as curious as civilized people to know where we were going, and
why; and they concealed with difficulty their surprise and suspicion
when they were told that our only object was to see the country. No
Oriental, much less a Bedawin, ranks that among possible reasons for
passing from one place to another. After more conversation than we
thought necessary before supper, a dish of rice was brought in, and with
it two wooden spoons; but how these came to be in a sheik's tent we
thought it wise not to ask. They looked on while we ate, refusing all
our entreaties to join with us; but when we had finished, they thrust
their hands into the bowl, and, with a deft movement, made round balls
as large as a lemon, and shot these with great skill into their mouths.
While they ate, my friend asked if he might read them a story. They
consented eagerly; and, taking out his Arabic Testament, he read them
the parable of the Prodigal Son. A more appreciative company never
listened to it. At each crisis of the narrative the sheik looked around
and said, "_Fayib ketir_,"--"Very good,"--and then, as if devoutly
making the responses, they all said, "_Fayib ketir_" I thought I saw one
of them brush away a tear as the story was finished: perhaps he was a
father with a prodigal son, or something in his heart may have told him
that he was a prodigal himself.

They all rose at a signal, and left us to our slumbers. We were to share
the tent with the sheik; and when we had laid ourselves down on the
cushions and covered ourselves with our overcoats, the sheik came
anxiously to my friend and asked "if we would not be very cold with
nothing over our heads." The Oriental lets his feet take care of
themselves if only his head is warm. The flap of the tent was not
lowered, and we could look from where we were lying on the Eastern hills
and the stars above them. It was long before I could sleep in such
surroundings. We were unprotected in the tent of a Bedawin sheik on the
waters of Merom, and all the past faded away: for the moment I did not
believe that there were such cities as New York and London and
Paris,--they were buried deep under the streets of Jerusalem and
Tiberias and Safed. I was no longer an American, but the son of this
sheik, destined to be the ruler of all the tribes that dwell in black
tents of hair-cloth. My friend lying at my side groaned in his sleep,
and the baseless fabric of my dream crumbled.