and take his bald-headed sons of the desert home with him alive for trophies.  But the wild-eyed pilgrim rhapsodist was silent.  His orbs gleamed with a deadly light, but his lips moved not.  Anxiety grew, and he was questioned.  If he had got a Bedouin, what would he have done with him —­shot him?  He smiled a smile of grim contempt and shook his head.  Would he have stabbed him?  Another shake.  Would he have quartered him —­flayed him?  More shakes.  Oh! horror what would he have done?

“Eat him!”

Such was the awful sentence that thundered from his lips.  What was grammar to a desperado like that?  I was glad in my heart that I had been spared these scenes of malignant carnage.  No Bedouins attacked our terrible rear.  And none attacked the front.  The new-comers were only a reinforcement of cadaverous Arabs, in shirts and bare legs, sent far ahead of us to brandish rusty guns, and shout and brag, and carry on like lunatics, and thus scare away all bands of marauding Bedouins that might lurk about our path.  What a shame it is that armed white Christians must travel under guard of vermin like this as a protection against the prowling vagabonds of the desert—­those sanguinary outlaws who are always going to do something desperate, but never do it.  I may as well mention here that on our whole trip we saw no Bedouins, and had no more use for an Arab guard than we could have had for patent leather boots and white kid gloves.  The Bedouins that attacked the other parties of pilgrims so fiercely were provided for the occasion by the Arab guards of those parties, and shipped from Jerusalem for temporary service as Bedouins.  They met together in full view of the pilgrims, after the battle, and took lunch, divided the bucksheesh extorted in the season of danger, and then accompanied the cavalcade home to the city!  The nuisance of an Arab guard is one which is created by the Sheiks and the Bedouins together, for mutual profit, it is said, and no doubt there is a good deal of truth in it.

We visited the fountain the prophet Elisha sweetened (it is sweet yet,) where he remained some time and was fed by the ravens.

Ancient Jericho is not very picturesque as a ruin.  When Joshua marched around it seven times, some three thousand years ago, and blew it down with his trumpet, he did the work so well and so completely that he hardly left enough of the city to cast a shadow.  The curse pronounced against the rebuilding of it, has never been removed.  One King, holding the curse in light estimation, made the attempt, but was stricken sorely for his presumption.  Its site will always remain unoccupied; and yet it is one of the very best locations for a town we have seen in all Palestine.

At two in the morning they routed us out of bed—­another piece of unwarranted cruelty—­another stupid effort of our dragoman to get ahead of a rival.  It was not two hours to the Jordan.  However, we were dressed and under way before any one thought of looking to see what time it was, and so we drowsed on through the chill night air and dreamed of camp fires, warm beds, and other comfortable things.