"There is nothing disgraceful," he said.

"That is just what I mean; and in that case I will do anything for
you that may be within my power. Now let us look for Joseph and the
mucherry-boy, for it is time that we were at Jericho."

I cannot describe at length the whole of our journey from thence to
our tents at Jericho, nor back to Jerusalem, nor even from Jerusalem
to Jaffa. At Jericho we did sleep in tents, paying so much per
night, according to the tariff. We wandered out at night, and drank
coffee with a family of Arabs in the desert, sitting in a ring round
their coffee-kettle. And we saw a Turkish soldier punished with the
bastinado,--a sight which did not do me any good, and which made
Smith very sick. Indeed after the first blow he walked away.
Jericho is a remarkable spot in that pilgrim week, and I wish I had
space to describe it. But I have not, for I must hurry on, back to
Jerusalem and thence to Jaffa. I had much to tell also of those
Bedouins; how they were essentially true to us, but teased us almost
to frenzy by their continual begging. They begged for our food and
our drink, for our cigars and our gunpowder, for the clothes off our
backs, and the handkerchiefs out of our pockets. As to gunpowder I
had none to give them, for my charges were all made up in
cartridges; and I learned that the guns behind their backs were a
mere pretence, for they had not a grain of powder among them.

We slept one night in Jerusalem, and started early on the following
morning. Smith came to my hotel so that we might be ready together
for the move. We still carried with us Joseph and the mucherry-boy;
but for our Bedouins, who had duly received their forty shillings a