returned from my solitary stroll. I had a capital breakfast, for which we
supplied the solids, and our host the coffee. Butter is a luxury which we
neither expected nor got. Hebron, none the less, seemed to me a Paradise,
and I applauded the legend that locates Adam and Eve in this spot.

Alas! I had not yet seen Hebron. The doctor lived on the outskirts near the
highroad, where there are many fine and beautiful residences. I was soon to
enter the streets and receive a rude awakening, when I saw the manner in
which the fifteen hundred Jews of Hebron live. Hebron is a ghetto in a
garden; it is worse than even Jerusalem, Jerusalem being clean in
comparison. Dirty, dark, narrow, vaulted, unevenly paved, running with
liquid slime--such are the streets of Hebron. You are constantly in danger
of slipping, unless you wear the flat, heel-less Eastern shoes, and, if you
once fell, not all the perfumes of Araby could make you sweet again.

I should say that, before starting on my round, I had to secure the
attendance of soldiers. Not that it was necessary, but they utilize
Baedeker's assertion, that the people are savage, to get fees out of
visitors--a cunning manner of turning the enemy's libels to profitable
account. I hired two soldiers, but one by one others joined my train, so
that by the time my tour was over, I had a whole regiment of guardians, all
demanding baksheesh. I would only deal with the leader, a ragged warrior
with two daggers, a sword, and a rifle. "How much?" I asked. "We usually
ask a napoleon (_i.e._ 20 francs) for an escort, but we will charge you
only ten francs." I turned to the doctor and asked him, "How much?" "Give
them a beslik between them," he said. A beslik is only five pence. I
offered it in trepidation, but the sum satisfied the whole gang, who
thanked me profusely.

First I visited the prison, a sort of open air cage, in which about a dozen