f there occurred
another instance of disobedience to orders I would thrash the
responsible party as he never dreamed of being thrashed, and if I
could not find who was responsible, I would whip them all, from
first to last, whether there was a governor at hand to do it or I
had to do it myself"
Perfectly fearless, this man.
He rode down the perpendicular path in the rocks, from the Castle of
Banias to the oak grove, at a flying gallop, his horse striding "thirty
feet" at every bound. I stand prepared to bring thirty reliable
witnesses to prove that Putnam's famous feat at Horseneck was
insignificant compared to this.
Behold him--always theatrical--looking at Jerusalem--this time, by an
oversight, with his hand off his pistol for once.
"I stood in the road, my hand on my horse's neck, and with my dim
eyes sought to trace the outlines of the holy places which I had
long before fixed in my mind, but the fast-flowing tears forbade my
succeeding. There were our Mohammedan servants, a Latin monk, two
Armenians and a Jew in our cortege, and all alike gazed with
overflowing eyes."
If Latin monks and Arabs cried, I know to a moral certainty that the
horses cried also, and so the picture is complete.
But when necessity demanded, he could be firm as adamant. In the Lebanon
Valley an Arab youth--a Christian; he is particular to explain that
Mohammedans do not steal--robbed him of a paltry ten dollars' worth of
powder and shot. He convicted him before a sheik and looked on while he
was punished by the terrible bastinado. Hear him:
"He (Mousa) was on his back in a twinkling, howling, shouting,
screaming, but he was carried out to the piazza before the door,
where we could see the operation, and laid face down. One man sat
on his back and one on his legs, the latter holding up his feet,
while a third laid on the bare soles a rhinoceros-hide koorbash
--["A Koorbash is Arabic for cowhide, the cow being a rhinoceros.
It is the most cruel whip known to fame. Heavy as lead, and
flexible as India-rubber, usually about forty inches long and
tapering gradually from an inch in diameter to a point, it
administers a blow which leaves its mark for time."--Scow Life in
Egypt, by the same author.]--that whizzed through the air at every
stroke. Poor Moreright was in agony, and Nama and Nama the Second
(mothe
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