e to my point of view, which was not then
avowed, but not to me. Indeed, so many of them showed me
kindness--particularly in my times of illness--that I cannot think of
them without a glow of friendliness. But the attitude of most of them
was never mine, and the fact that at the time I still admired that
attitude as the correct one, and thought myself at intervals a sad
backslider, made it seem forbidding. In my Oriental life they really
were, as here depicted, a disapproving shadow in the background. With
one--referred to often in these tales--I was in full agreement. We
lived together for some months in a small mountain village, and our
friendship then established has remained unbroken. But he, though not
alone, was an exception.

Owing to the general verdict on my Arab friends, I led what might be
called a double life during the months of my first sojourn in
Jerusalem; until Suleyman, the tourist season being ended, came with
promise of adventure, when I flung discretion to the winds. We hired
two horses and a muleteer, and rode away into the north together. A
fortnight later, at the foot of the Ladder of Tyre, Suleyman was
forced to leave me, being summoned to his village. I still rode on
towards the north, alone with one hired muleteer, a simple soul. A
notion of my subsequent adventures may, perhaps, be gathered from the
following pages, in which I have embodied fictionally some impressions
still remaining clear after the lapse of more than twenty years. A
record of small things, no doubt; yet it seems possible that something
human may be learnt from such a comic sketch-book of experience which
would never be derived from more imposing works.

CHAPTER I

RASHID THE FAIR

The brown plain, swimming in a haze of heat, stretched far away into
the distance, where a chain of mountains trenched upon the cloudless
sky. Six months of drought had withered all the herbage. Only
thistles, blue and yellow, and some thorny bushes had survived; but
after the torrential winter rains the whole expanse would blossom like
the rose. I traversed the plain afterwards in spring, when cornfields
waved for miles around its three mud villages, wild flowers in mad
profusion covered its waste places, and scarlet tulips flamed amid its
wheat.

Now all was desert. After riding for four days in such a landscape, it
was sweet to think upon the journey's end, the city of perennial
waters, shady gardens, and the song of birds. I was