We Halted, In The Middle Of The Day, In A Little Wood Of Olive-
Trees, Which Forms Almost The Only
Shelter between Jaffa and
Jerusalem, except that afforded by the orchards in the odious
village of Abou Gosh, through which
We went at a double quick pace.
Under the olives, or up in the branches, some of our friends took a
siesta. I have a sketch of four of them so employed. Two of them
were dead within a month of the fatal Syrian fever. But we did not
know how near fate was to us then. Fires were lighted, and fowls
and eggs divided, and tea and coffee served round in tin panikins,
and here we lighted pipes, and smoked and laughed at our ease. I
believe everybody was happy to be out of Jerusalem. The impression
I have of it now is of ten days passed in a fever.
We all found quarters in the Greek convent at Ramleh, where the
monks served us a supper on a terrace, in a pleasant sunset; a
beautiful and cheerful landscape stretching around; the land in
graceful undulations, the towers and mosques rosy in the sunset,
with no lack of verdure, especially of graceful palms. Jaffa was
nine miles off. As we rode all the morning we had been accompanied
by the smoke of our steamer, twenty miles off at sea.
The convent is a huge caravanserai; only three or four monks dwell
in it, the ghostly hotel-keepers of the place. The horses were
tied up and fed in the courtyard, into which we rode; above were
the living-rooms, where there is accommodation, not only for an
unlimited number of pilgrims, but for a vast and innumerable host
of hopping and crawling things, who usually persist in partaking of
the traveller's bed. Let all thin-skinned travellers in the East
be warned on no account to travel without the admirable invention
described in Mr. Fellowes's book; nay, possibly invented by that
enterprising and learned traveller. You make a sack, of calico or
linen, big enough for the body, appended to which is a closed
chimney of muslin, stretched out by cane hoops, and fastened up to
a beam, or against the wall. You keep a sharp eye to see that no
flea or bug is on the look-out, and when assured of this, you pop
into the bag, tightly closing the orifice after you. This
admirable bug-disappointer I tried at Ramleh, and had the only
undisturbed night's rest I enjoyed in the East. To be sure it was
a short night, for our party were stirring at one o'clock, and
those who got up insisted on talking and keeping awake those who
inclined to sleep. But I shall never forget the terror inspired in
my mind, being shut up in the bug-disappointer, when a facetious
lay-brother of the convent fell upon me and began tickling me. I
never had the courage again to try the anti-flea contrivance,
preferring the friskiness of those animals to the sports of such a
greasy grinning wag as my friend at Ramleh.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 99 of 126
Words from 51242 to 51764
of 65663
