After he had welcomed me effusively he led us through a rat-run
maze of streets to a good-sized house with snub-nosed lions
carved on the stone doorposts and a lot of other marks of both
Roman and crusader. No part of the walls was less than three
feet thick, although the upper story had been rebuilt rather
recently on a more economical and much less dignified scale.
Nevertheless, there was a sort of semi-European air about the
place, helped out by two casemented projections overhanging the
narrow street.

There was no need to announce ourselves. The clatter of hoofs
and shouts to ordinary folk on foot to get out of the way had
done that already. Sheikh ben Nazir opened the door in person.
His welcome to me was the sort that comes to mind when you read
the Bible story of the prodigal son returning from a far-off
country. I might have been his blood-relation. But perhaps I am
wrong about that; bloodfeuds among blood-relations are
notoriously savage. He was the host, and I the guest. Among
genuine Arabs that is the most binding relation there is.

He was no longer in blue serge and patent-leather boots, but
magnificent in Arab finery, and he was tricked out in a puzzling
snowy-white head-dress that suggested politics without your
knowing why. He had told me, when I met him at the American
Colony, that he had made the pilgrimage to Mecca more than once;
but that white linen thing had nothing to do with his being a
haji, any more than the expensive rings on the fingers of both
hands had anything to do with his Arab nationality.

After he had flattered and questioned me sufficiently about the