Then Came The Night At The Consul's. The Poor Demure Old Gentleman
Brought Out His Mattresses; And The Ladies Sleeping Round On The
Divans, We Lay Down Quite Happy; And I For My Part Intended To Make
As Delightful Dreams As Alnaschar; But - Lo, The Delicate Mosquito
Sounded His Horn:
The active flea jumped up, and came to feast on
Christian flesh (the Eastern flea bites more bitterly than the most
savage bug in Christendom), and the bug - oh, the accursed!
Why was
he made? What duty has that infamous ruffian to perform in the
world, save to make people wretched? Only Bulwer in his most
pathetic style could describe the miseries of that night - the
moaning, the groaning, the cursing, the tumbling, the blistering,
the infamous despair and degradation! I heard all the cocks in
Jaffa crow; the children crying, and the mothers hushing them; the
donkeys braying fitfully in the moonlight; at last I heard the
clatter of hoofs below, and the hailing of men. It was three
o'clock, the horses were actually come; nay, there were camels
likewise; asses and mules, pack-saddles and drivers, all bustling
together under the moonlight in the cheerful street - and the first
night in Syria was over.
CHAPTER XII: FROM JAFFA TO JERUSALEM
It took an hour or more to get our little caravan into marching
order, to accommodate all the packs to the horses, the horses to
the riders; to see the ladies comfortably placed in their litter,
with a sleek and large black mule fore and aft, a groom to each
mule, and a tall and exceedingly good-natured and mahogany-coloured
infidel to walk by the side of the carriage, to balance it as it
swayed to and fro, and to offer his back as a step to the inmates
whenever they were minded to ascend or alight.
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