er means of information on the
subject.

So I remained at Jaffa, in a little _gasthaus_ in the German colony,
which had the charms of cleanliness and cheapness, and there I might
have stayed till now had I awaited the tidings promised by my
counsellor. There for the first two weeks I found life very dull. Then
Mr. Hanauer, the English chaplain, and a famous antiquarian, took pity
on my solitary state, walked me about, and taught me words of Arabic.
He was a native of Jerusalem, and loved the country. My sneaking wish
to fraternise with Orientals, when I avowed it after hesitations,
appeared good to him. And then I made acquaintance with a clever
dragoman and one of the most famous jokers in all Syria, who happened
to be lodging at my little hostelry, with nothing in the world to do
but stare about him. He helped me to throw off the European and plunge
into the native way of living. With him I rode about the plain of
Sharon, sojourning among the fellahin, and sitting in the coffee-shops
of Ramleh, Lydda, Gaza, meeting all sorts of people, and acquiring the
vernacular without an effort, in the manner of amusement. From dawn to
sunset we were in the saddle. We went on pilgrimage to Nebi Rubin, the
mosque upon the edge of marshes by the sea, half-way to Gaza; we rode
up northward to the foot of Carmel; explored the gorges of the
mountains of Judaea; frequented Turkish baths; ate native meals and
slept in native houses--following the customs of the people of the
land in all respects. And I was amazed at the immense relief I found
in such a life. In all my previous years I had not seen happy people.
These were happy. Poor they might be, but they had no dream of wealth;
the very thought of competition was unknown to them, and rivalry was
still a matter of the horse and spear. Wages and rent were troubles
they had never heard of. Class distinctions, as we understand them,
were not. Everybody talked to everybody. With inequality they had a
true fraternity. People complained that they were badly governed,
which merely meant that they were left to their devices save on great
occasions. A Government which touches every individual and interferes
with him to some extent in daily life, though much esteemed by
Europeans, seems intolerable to the Oriental. I had a vision of the
tortured peoples of the earth impelled by their own misery to desolate
the happy peoples, a vision which grew clearer in the after years.
But in that easy-going