ed to mournin' and
can earn their money better. 'Tennyrate, these screeched and wailed
and tore their hair and beat their breast-bone as if they meant to
earn their money. Then come the relatives and friends. Of course, they
no need to have wep' a tear, havin' hired it done. But they did seem
to feel real bad, they couldn't have wept and wailed any more if they
had been hired to. Josiah sez:

"Samantha, when I'm took, if you hire anybody to mourn get some better
lookin' females than these. I had almost ruther die onlamented than to
have such lookin' creeters weepin' over my remains; now some fair
lookin' females such as sister Celestine Bobbett and she that wuz
Submit Tewksbury----"

But I interrupted him by telling him truly that no hired tears would
fall on his beloved face if I outlived him, and no boughten groans
would be hearn. Sez I, "The tears of true love and grief would bedew
your forward."

"Well," sez he, "it would be my wishes."

As we wended our way along we met several water-carriers with leather
bottles, jest such a one as Hagar took with her and Ishmael out in the
desert, and it wuz on this same desert whose sands wuz siftin' in
about us every chance it had that she lay the child down to die and
angels come and fed him. And, also, it bein' along towards night we
met several shepherds; one wuz carryin' a tired lamb in his arms. They
wuz patriarkal in appearance and dressed jest like the Bible pictures.
I felt as though I had met Abraham or Isaac onbeknown to them.

Another sight that impressed my pardner fearfully wuz the howlin'
dervishes--we'd hearn about 'em a sight, and so we thought we would go
and hear 'em howl. By payin' a little backsheesh (which is money) we
got permission to attend one of their religious meetin's. There wuz a
chief or Sheik, which Josiah always called a "shack"--and I d'no but
he wuz well named--and about twenty or thirty howlers in long white
robes. They made a low bow to the Shack and then knelt round him in a
circle; then they bowed agin a number of times clear to the floor and
begun to sing or pray. I d'no what you would call it, but the axents
wuz dretful and the music that accompanied it harrowin' in the
extreme. Then they got up and bowed agin to the Shack and begun to
shake their heads and their arms and their feet rapid and voylent, all
keepin' time to the music, or what I spoze they called music, their
hair hangin' loose, their yellin' fearful, and then they begu