A RIDE ACROSS PALESTINE

by Anthony Trollope




Circumstances took me to the Holy Land without a companion, and
compelled me to visit Bethany, the Mount of Olives, and the Church
of the Sepulchre alone. I acknowledge myself to be a gregarious
animal, or, perhaps, rather one of those which nature has intended
to go in pairs. At any rate I dislike solitude, and especially
travelling solitude, and was, therefore, rather sad at heart as I
sat one night at Z-'s hotel, in Jerusalem, thinking over my proposed
wanderings for the next few days. Early on the following morning I
intended to start, of course on horseback, for the Dead Sea, the
banks of Jordan, Jericho, and those mountains of the wilderness
through which it is supposed that Our Saviour wandered for the forty
days when the devil tempted him. I would then return to the Holy
City, and remaining only long enough to refresh my horse and wipe
the dust from my hands and feet, I would start again for Jaffa, and
there catch a certain Austrian steamer which would take me to Egypt.
Such was my programme, and I confess that I was but ill contented
with it, seeing that I was to be alone during the time.

I had already made all my arrangements, and though I had no reason
for any doubt as to my personal security during the trip, I did not
feel altogether satisfied with them. I intended to take a French
guide, or dragoman, who had been with me for some days, and to put
myself under the peculiar guardianship of two Bedouin Arabs, who