A Good Way For The Inexperienced Is To Put A Stick Or
Umbrella Across The Saddle Peak Again, So That It Is Next To
Impossible To Go Over Your Horse's Neck.
I found this a vast
comfort in going down the hills, and recommend it conscientiously
to other dear simple brethren of the city.
Peaceful men, we did not ornament our girdles with pistols,
yataghans, &c., such as some pilgrims appeared to bristle all over
with; and as a lesson to such rash people, a story may be told
which was narrated to us at Jerusalem, and carries a wholesome
moral. The Honourable Hoggin Armer, who was lately travelling in
the East, wore about his stomach two brace of pistols, of such
exquisite finish and make, that a Sheikh, in the Jericho country,
robbed him merely for the sake of the pistols. I don't know
whether he has told the story to his friends at home.
Another story about Sheikhs may here be told a propos. That
celebrated Irish Peer, Lord Oldgent (who was distinguished in the
Buckinghamshire Dragoons), having paid a sort of black mail to the
Sheikh of Jericho country, was suddenly set upon by another Sheikh,
who claimed to be the real Jerichonian governor; and these twins
quarrelled over the body of Lord Oldgent, as the widows for the
innocent baby before Solomon. There was enough for both - but these
digressions are interminable.
The party got under way at near four o'clock: the ladies in the
litter, the French femme-de-chambre manfully caracoling on a grey
horse; the cavaliers, like your humble servant, on their high
saddles; the domestics, flunkeys, guides, and grooms, on all sorts
of animals, - some fourteen in all.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 149 of 240
Words from 40722 to 41007
of 65663
