I had much to tell also of those
Bedouins; how they were essentially true to us, but teased us almost
to frenzy by their continual begging. They begged for our food and
our drink, for our cigars and our gunpowder, for the clothes off our
backs, and the handkerchiefs out of our pockets. As to gunpowder I
had none to give them, for my charges were all made up in
cartridges; and I learned that the guns behind their backs were a
mere pretence, for they had not a grain of powder among them.
We slept one night in Jerusalem, and started early on the following
morning. Smith came to my hotel so that we might be ready together
for the move. We still carried with us Joseph and the mucherry-boy;
but for our Bedouins, who had duly received their forty shillings a
piece, we had no further use. On our road down to Jerusalem we had
much chat together, but only one adventure. Those pilgrims, of whom
I have spoken, journey to Jerusalem in the greatest number by the
route which we were now taking from it, and they come in long
droves, reaching Jaffa in crowds by the French and Austrian steamers
from Smyrna, Damascus, and Constantinople.
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