To be
the owner of a horse or a mule within reach of an Asiatic
potentate, is to lead the life of the hare and the rabbit, hunted
down and ferreted out. Too often it happens that the works of the
field are stopped in the daytime, that the inmates of the cottage
are roused from their midnight sleep, by the sudden coming of a
Government officer, and the poor husbandman, driven by threats and
rewarded by curses, if he would not lose sight for ever of his
captured beasts, must quit all and follow them. This is done that
the Englishman may travel. He would make his way more harmless if
he could, but horses or mules he MUST have, and these are his ways
and means.
The town of Nablus is beautiful; it lies in a valley hemmed in with
olive groves, and its buildings are interspersed with frequent
palm-trees. It is said to occupy the site of the ancient Sychem.
I know not whether it was there indeed that the father of the Jews
was accustomed to feed his flocks, but the valley is green and
smiling, and is held at this day by a race more brave and beautiful
than Jacob's unhappy descendants.
Nablus is the very furnace of Mahometan bigotry; and I believe that
only a few months before the time of my going there it would have
been quite unsafe for a man, unless strongly guarded, to show
himself to the people of the town in a Frank costume; but since
their last insurrection the Mahometans of the place had been so far
subdued by the severity of Ibrahim Pasha, that they dared not now
offer the slightest insult to an European.
