120 JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM. This predatory expedition was indeed a surprising afterpiece to the great peaceful festival of Salech. I subsequently heard, in Constantinople, that the Bedouins of Tor had solicited the intervention of Mehemet Ali, who, upon certain conditions, restored to them almost the whole of their lost camels. JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM. On the 21st of June, at five in the afternoon, I again bade farewell, and probably for the last time, to Cairo. Jerusalem was my goal. I regret that I did not go thither direct from Sinai, across Akaba, Petra, and Hebron; but, together with other motives, the chief object of my return to Cairo was to visit the Coptic monastery of Damietta, in the prosecution of my MSS. researches. I now gave up this plan, as my expectations had been damped by my preceding exploration; nor did either the visit to Damietta, the very home of the plague, nor the journey thence by water, in a Turkish coasting vessel, present any greatly attractive motive. An adventure was linked with my departure from Cairo. I had scarcely been an hour's journey from the gates, when suddenly several Arab cavaliers sprung around, with no minor object than to detain me. I rode in advance of my caravan, and received in the most hostile manner the incomprehensible, and yet also right easily comprehensible, demonstrations of these cavaliers. Upon receiving the explanation of this movement, I saw already behind me a troop of many riders upon asses, and a swarm of people on foot, advancing with the greatest precipitation. The secretary of the Austrian consulate rode in advance, and told me that an Italian of rank, of the name of had pocketed, instead of paying into a banker's, a sum of ten thousand florins, and that it had been reported that he had joined my caravan to proceed into Syria. Probably my dragoman, who, notwithstanding his Oriental costume, betrayed the Frank, had been mistaken for the plunderer. I received now an accurate description of him, and was invested with authority to seize in case of falling in with him. The disappointed expedition returned, and I had no opportunity to use my deputed authority. Upon arriving at the wells of Mataryeh, I saw once more the ancient venerable sycamore, to which is attached the tradition that it miraculously sheltered the holy family during the flight to Egypt; and I caused my water-skins to be filled with the excellent water of the celebrated Fountain of the Sun. GERMAN TAILOR AS DRAGOMAN. 121 The following afternoon I discovered how unfortunate the selection of my guides was to prove. We stopped opposite Kanka. I wished to proceed some leagues further; but my convoy constrained me to stay, confessing their invincible fear of the robbers beyond Kanka. They alleged, as their reason, that a few days before a highwayman had been decapitated at that place. But, apart from their real timidity, the main cause was, their wish to join themselves to a caravan that was following us, which consisted of forty camels, and was friendly towards them. This Arab party, to whom women and children made convenience a duty, was very unpleasant to me. I insisted that we should separate on the following morning. But my present convoy were not Bedouins, for they invariably spoke contemptuously of the Bedouins who met us, and whom they called Arabs. Two of them were natives of El Arisch; the third was a black slave. But I must also give some account of my dragoman. I had already engaged my brave Ali of Gizeh for my journey into Syria, when several friends recommended to me in his stead a countryman of my own, who was without the means of travelling to Jerusalem, whither he was bent. He was a native of the Baltic provinces of Prussia, and by trade a tailor. He had domiciled himself for a considerable time both in Constantinople and Cairo, and spoke Arabic fluently. I had been told that the many gallant adventures of the handsome young German had made his departure from the ancient city of the caliphs exceedingly desirable. As he—a genuine homme a tout faire-was also skilled in cookery, and appeared to have the requisite energy for the caravan, I allowed myself to be persuaded to the exchange, notwithstanding the precaution requisite against such people in such countries, and I took "the handsome Frederick" into my service. No one could possibly discern that he was a knight of the needle, and not of the pennon, as he rode along beside me upon his camel, clothed from head to foot in the Turkish costume, and decorated with a glittering and trailing sword, and with a brace of pistols in his girdle. I had no occasion to regret my selection, although he was not exactly au fait in the command of the convoy. But he had a thousand anecdotes to tell me. I also learnt from him that German wanderers of his condition, and of other similar ones, formed a sort of combination in distant countries, the force of which I should never have surmised. Unfortunately I heard too late from him, that the ass-drivers of Cairo entertain an especial respect for the "rude Germans." As far as I can remember, they did not certainly detect my nationality. An anecdote which may have tended to effect this, I take the liberty to relate : 122 SCENERY ON THE ROAD. A German of the same trade as my dragoman had "too moistly" celebrated the Sunday-one of the superfluous preliminaries for a Christian missionary service. On riding back from Bulak to Cairo, he cleared his passage through the streets with a naked sword. Every thing made way for him—for, in the East, everybody passes for what de facto he is—excepting one seis, who, with the same steady conscience as his grey quadruped, tranquilly pursued his road. But the rampant cavalier reached the ass, and cut off his nose. The seis complains, he demands compensation for his ass. The tailor, as well as the ass without a nose, are impounded: but in consequence of the customary reference of the Franks to their consuls, the affair became procrastinated; whilst the impounded ass, notwithstanding his noseless visage, displayed the heartiest appetite. The result was, that the seis was informed that his animal would be sent away, in case he did not remove it; but the German hero not only retained-contrary to the ordinary custom of Oriental justice— his own nose, but received also, on the part of his consulate, another in addition. The first four days of our journey our course lay through animated and fruitful districts, for we were traversing the land of Goshen, that jewel of Egypt. We passed by noble forests of date palms— one in particular astonished me, for it was entirely surrounded with sand. This proves how thoroughly, in this fertile land of Egypt, even apparently desert tracts of sand are capable of cultivation wherever water is to be procured. Among the field fruits I observed large plantations of gourds and water melons. Upon reaching the last small branch of the Nile, my guides did not omit apprising me of it; and they themselves took hearty draughts of it. For three days before we reached the Egyptian frontier fortress, El Arisch, we journeyed constantly through a deep soft sand, which nowhere yielded a firm hold for our tents. It had formed here a multitude of hills and valleys of a peculiar shape, and it was not at all easy to keep to the proper track. After nightfall the stars always served for our guides; occasionally we lost every indication of a track, and without the lights above it would have been impossible to avoid being lost. We also once went astray: we stood upon the edge of precipices, which, from their unstable sand, looked very fearful; but the black slave knew how to extricate us, and in all doubtful cases I subsequently left the determination of our course to him. Our supplies of water we several times drew from the residue preserved at the post stations which had been constructed by Ibrahim Pasha, when ruler of Syria, for maintaining the intercourse with Egypt. But it was never entirely free from a taste of salt or salt GAZELLES DROMEDARY POST. 123 petre. Our camels relished it better, for these animals can far less dispense with water than the camels of the Bedouins. A delusive compensation for bright clear water was offered us repeatedly in the spectacle of the Serab, or the celebrated mirage. My dragoman was not unacquainted with it and yet he once surmised that we should now at last reach a lake. We, in fact, saw so distinctly the waves crisped in the wind, and glittering in the sun, that a person unacquainted with the delusion must have been deceived. We also fell in with an Egyptian guardpost, still distant from the frontiers; it was garrisoned with Albanian soldiers, who immediately visited me in my tent, and for safety brought their own pipes with them. They were stationed near a wood of tamarisks, where we disturbed several gazelles, which we vainly endeavoured to shoot. On seeing these animals, clothed as it were with such maidenly modesty, and yet exhibiting such graceful forms in their rapid motion over the wide waste, it is easy to conceive the prepossession of Oriental poets for them. I have also studied their mild yet fiery eyes, such as those of a beautiful eastern inamorata must surely be. In Cairo tame gazelles are kept, which appear to be happy in their thraldom amongst the peacocks, storks, and fowls of the court-yards. It is known that the name of " gazelle has been conferred on maidens: its equivalent in Syriac is Tabitha, the name of the pious female at Joppa, whom Peter recalled to life. (Acts, ix. 40.) A solitary rider upon a dromedary, whom we met, excited my interest. He carried the mail of the French consul at Jerusalem, who usually in from five to six days traverses with his swift bearer the long distance from Cairo to Jerusalem. It is to be feared that this same rider whom we met fell probably into the hands of the hostile Bedouins beyond Gaza, for neither upon my arrival, nor during my stay in Jerusalem, did he make his appearance. The consul told me that he was not the first whom he had vainly expected, although for some time past he had made terms with a sheikh of the Bedouins of that vicinity to protect the mail. Before we reached El Arisch, we met several small Arab caravans. My convoy put the same question to each : "How goes it? What's the news?" And the same reply was made by each: "War! war!" On the morning of the 28th of June we arrived at El Arisch, the ancient Rhinocolura. My convoy even put on their sandals to play a respectable part before their friends. I caused my tent to be pitched at some distance from the walls, beneath some palm trees, and went immediately into the town to learn the state of matters. The only European there was a Greek of the name of Riso, an adjutant, and the solitary remnant of the board of health. Of the esta blishment of the physician, a young Italian, nothing remained but his black wife and a female slave: he himself had become bankrupt and had gone to Alexandria. According to the adjutant, the following was the explanation of the rumour of war. On the 16th of April, the Bedouin tribes of Suerke and Asasme, on the Egyptian side, had taken the field to revenge themselves upon the tribes of Telya and Sarbim, of the Turkish side. On the 25th of May they had renewed their hostilities. Since then, the former, the Egyptian Bedouins, some thousands in number, had moved for greater protection into the immediate vicinity of El Arisch: their tents were pitched upon the eastern side of this strong town, garrisoned at present with a hundred and fifty soldiers. With respect to the security of the road, the intercourse of the Bedouins themselves was in the greatest degree dangerous, and many instances of attacks upon travellers had occurred. But the attack of Franks was limited to the exaction of a tribute, varying in amount. About a fortnight before me an Englishman had arrived at El Arisch, who subsequently wrote to the adjutant of his lucky escape and arrival at Gaza. Three months before a thousand dollars and various effects were stolen during the night from a Russian colonel, just before reaching El Arisch. The Englishman, consequently, who had a considerable sum of money about him, had been induced to stop eight days in El Arisch, that he might receive before starting certain intelligence from Gaza. All this did not convince me of any real danger, and even did it exist there was no apparent probability of its being speedily removed, I was therefore not at all inclined to yield to the wishes of my convoy, who desired that I should await the arrival of the other Arab caravan of forty camels, with the women and children. But I readily comprehended why my delay in El Arisch would be most agreeable to my guides, where Mustapha had two wives, and Mohammed a wife and family. Yet, notwithstanding my incessant and serious threatenings, which the adjutant strongly supported, - while, from the governor, as he was described to me, neither aid nor military escort was to be obtained,— I found myself compelled to submit to the pleasure of my guides. I shall subsequently narrate that I did not remain their debtor for a just retaliation to their refractory conduct. I endeavoured for four days to amuse myself as much as was possible in this wild and warlike vicinity. The sea, the road to which lay through a noble wood, was scarcely a league distant. On its strand I observed multitudes of those small crabs, of which I had read in Belon's travels, made in 1555. He writes of them, that they are not much larger than a chesnut, and run faster than a man ; and, what is most singular, that by day they lie exposed upon land to the |