rm a very faint idea of a mob of native boatmen
storming a ship at Jaffa. Of course, the ladders are filled first,
then those who have missed the ladders drive bang against the ship,
grab a rope or cable, or anything they can grasp, and run up the iron,
slippery side of the ship as a squirrel runs up a tree.

[Illustration: A STREET SCENE IN JERUSALEM.]

From the top of the ship they began to fire the bags, bundles, and
boxes of the deck passengers down into the broad boats that lay so
thick at the ship's side as to hide the sea entirely. When they had
thrown everything overboard that was loose at one end, they began on
the poor pilgrims.

Women, old and young, who were scarcely able to stand up, were dragged
to the ladders and down to the last step. Here they were supposed to
wait for the boat into which the Arabs were preparing to pitch them,
for the sea was still very rough. Now the bottom step of the ladder
was in the water, now six feet above, but what did these poor ignorant
Russians know about gymnastics? When the rolling sea brought the
row-boats up, the pilgrim usually hesitated, while the bare-armed and
bare-legged boatmen yelled and wrenched her hands from the chains. By
the time the Mohammedans had shaken her loose, and the victim had
crossed herself, the ladder was six or eight feet from the small boat;
but it was too late to stay her now, even if the Arabs had wished to,
but they did not. When she made the sign of the cross, that decided
them, and they let her drop. Some waiting Turks made a feeble attempt
to catch the sprawling woman, but not much. Sometimes, before one
could rise, another woman--for they were nearly all women--would drop
upon her bent back. Sometimes, when the first boat was filled, an Arab
would catch the pilgrim on his neck, and she could then be seen riding
him away, as a woman rides a bicycle. From one boat to another he
would leap with his helpless victim, and finally pitch her forward,
over his own head, into an empty boat, where she would lie limp and
helpless, and regret it some more.

I saw one poor girl, with great heavy boots on her feet, with
horse-shoe nails in the heels, fall into the bottom of a boat, and,
before she could get up, three large women were dropped in her lap.
Just then the boat, being full, pulled off, and I saw her faint; her
head fell back, and her deathlike face showed how she suffered. It was
rare sport for the Mohammedans.

"Jump," they would say t