When My Dragoman Helps Me Over The Stone Door-Sill, And We Enter The Hut, We Find That The Part Allotted To Men Consists Of But One Small Room, Having A Floor Of Earth On Which Are Spread A Couple Of Mats.

In this room there is no furniture.

Two persons are already asleep on the floor. We do not disturb them.

Not having eaten anything since noon, my dragoman begins at once to prepare a light lunch for us. On a brazier that he finds here he makes a little charcoal fire and quickly brews some of the tea brought from Damascus; into this he squeezes lemon juice; then finding some bread that he had stowed away in his saddle-bags, our lunch is ready. I sit on the floor as comfortable as I can make myself while he is getting supper. The flickering light, the shifting shadows, the strange ones lying asleep, the almost as strange dusky helpers, the sense of dangers just escaped, the whining, wailing, barking dogs, my physical pain - all these things beget within me a strange feeling of loneliness and a longing for home. Again and again I ask myself the question, "Why did you undertake this; why were you not content to go down from Damascus to Galilee and all of West Palestine by the easy way?" But, again and again I say to myself: "You would never have been satisfied had you done so; this is part of the price to be paid for what you wanted; consider what you get in exchange, value received."

But my reverie is cut short by a groan from my dragoman; he sank back trembling and said, "Call Haleel!" Together we worked with him for a half-hour or more until a chill, the result of drinking too much water on reaching the village, had been overcome.

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