They would raise a great shout and sway forward
in a dense body from behind the thicket; but when they saw that
their bravery thus gathered to a head did not even suspend the
strapping of a portmanteau or the tying of a hatbox, their shout
lost its spirit, and the whole mass was irresistibly drawn back
like a wave receding from the shore.
These attempts at an onset were repeated several times, but always
with the same result. I remained under the apprehension of an
attack for more than half-an-hour, and it seemed to me that the
work of packing and loading had never been done so slowly. I felt
inclined to tell my fellows to make their best speed, but just as I
was going to speak I observed that every one was doing his duty
already; I therefore held my peace and said not a word, till at
last Mysseri led up my horse and asked me if I were ready to mount.
We all marched off without hindrance.
After some time we came across a party of Ibrahim's cavalry, which
had bivouacked at no great distance from us. The knowledge that
such a force was in the neighbourhood may have conduced to the
forbearance of the cave-holders.
We saw a scraggy-looking fellow nearly black, and wearing nothing
but a cloth round the loins; he was tending flocks. Afterwards I
came up with another of these goatherds, whose helpmate was with
him. They gave us some goat's milk, a welcome present. I pitied
the poor devil of a goatherd for having such a very plain wife. I
spend an enormous quantity of pity upon that particular form of
human misery.
About midday I began to examine my map and to question my guide,
who at last fell on his knees and confessed that he knew nothing of
the country in which we were. I was thus thrown upon my own
resources, and calculating that on the preceding day we had nearly
performed a two days' journey, I concluded that the Dead Sea must
be near. In this I was right, for at about three or four o'clock
in the afternoon I caught a first sight of its dismal face.
I went on and came near to those waters of death. They stretched
deeply into the southern desert, and before me, and all around, as
far away as the eye could follow, blank hills piled high over
hills, pale, yellow, and naked, walled up in her tomb for ever the
dead and damned Gomorrah. There was no fly that hummed in the
forbidden air, but instead a deep stillness; no grass grew from the
earth, no weed peered through the void sand; but in mockery of all
life there were trees borne down by Jordan in some ancient flood,
and these, grotesquely planted upon the forlorn shore, spread out
their grim skeleton arms, all scorched and charred to blackness by
the heats of the long silent years.
