teeth: he had a long rifle, that had not been fired since the last
siege of Jerusalem slung across his back, round his body were courses of
daggers, pistols and dirks--awfully bloodthirsty-looking things, don't
you know; then he wore a magnificent, three-story turban, topped off with
a big bunch of dyed green alfalfa; the _tout ensemble_ was completed by a
dark red, flowing robe which swept behind him in the wind like the wings
of an angel of death. This great man would bow to us ceremoniously,
place his hand on his heart, put spurs to his horse and dash to the top
of the nearest hill; then, shading his eyes, he would scan the horizon
with careful scrutiny. Now with leaps and bounds he would descend again,
and planting himself before us in the road, would announce that there
were no robbers in sight, or that his appearance had frightened them off,
and then shout at the top of his voice,

"BAKSHISH! BAKSHISH!!"

although he had been already paid. There were four of them guarding us,
and at the end they lined up across the road with the idea that we would
have to settle, but we brushed through them, pushing some of them on
their backs, so their bluff was "called."

Rooms were scarce at the Jordan hotels, and the drivers of the light
carriages were anxious to get there ahead of one another in order to
secure the first choice for their fares; so a general edging up took
place which resulted finally in a steeplechase across the fields, in
which several were thrown out. Our carriage led for the last mile, but
was passed by two others at the finish, thus giving us third place and
single rooms as our reward.

My apartment was a whitewashed cell, without ventilation, but it was
"mine own" and I was happy. The mirror was hung so high that I had to
make a pyramid of three boxes on which to stand while shaving. They were
quite rickety, and I was between the Scylla of cutting my throat with the
razor and the Charybdis of breaking my bones by a fall on the floor.
Neither happened, however.

[Illustration: RIVER JORDAN, WHERE WE CROSSED ON A FERRY-BOAT; THE ONLY
REASON FOR DOING IT WAS TO TRY A VOYAGE WITHOUT STEWARDS' FEES]

We went in to dinner. The hotel put up a fine showing of red napkins,
plated cruet stands (with nothing in the bottles), bundles of toothpicks,
last week's bread, bright green pickles (that had been dropped into some
kind of pungent, commercial acid which would have made excellent rat
poison); paper