child perched on a mound, and from him, under some compulsion of fear, got knowledge of their watering place. It was a beautiful pool of rain water in the hollow of a rock, and here we lay long and quenched our thirst and filled our goat skins.
By good fortune it was, the men of the place, Azazimeh Arabs, were away or I doubt if we should have been allowed to take so liberal a share of this "Bounty of God," for they were in possession of the place and had sown a little barley field, as Bedouins often do on the Syrian frontier for the chance of rain, and this was all their drinking store till their corn should be ripe.
Nor were they otherwise than justly angry on their return, and we had to watch all night for fear of an attack. It was not till morning that they came with shouts and menaces, but we had already loaded our camels, and being well armed held on our way.
Knowing the ways of Bedouins better now, I feel sure that we need not thus have quarrelled with them, and that with a little explanation and payment for our disturbance of their rights they would have received us well.
But as it was, we were within a hair's breadth of a serious misadventure, and deserve to be thankful that the following day we at last reached the grass lands between Hebron and Gaza.
Here the more settled Arabs gave us a good reception, and having made friends with them the memory of our past danger was soon forgotten. This ended our travels for that year, and from Jerusalem we returned in the early summer by the ordinary sea route to England.
The winter of 1877-8 saw us again in the East, this time with a larger program of adventure. We visited Aleppo, and passed down the