There was naturally no fire, and dreams of tea were destined to disappointment; but there were other combinations obtainable where water was good and abundant, from which we were not averse. Have we not, some of us, drunk "Ben Nevis" on Mount Lebanon and "Talisker" in glens other than those of Skye? We had food with us, though our friends' hospitalities had left us little appetite, and we made no complaint—having water and towels—that sheets were not forthcoming. All that lacked, in this semi-tropical atmosphere, was a sweet-scented breeze from off the Belka.
We rose somewhat sadly next morning, and compared our twilight start with that of nine days ago—sad, not as so often happens, from any consciousness of anticipations unfulfilled, of hopes disappointed, but only because those golden days were now buried with the past.
We rested for some time at the Good Samaritan Inn, and wrote some picture postcards, to be stamped—strange anachronism—with the postmark Bon Samaritain! Perhaps twopence was a large sum in New Testament days, or it may be that good man had a long bill when he "came again"; or, still more likely, the progress of civilisation and of religion has relegated hospitality and trustworthiness to the ignorant and savage Bedu. Anyway, the shilling demanded seemed to us a good deal to pay for a cup of tea and a biscuit.
We had no further adventure, and stopped but once, to photograph the stone which Abraham brought on his back from some distant place—variously stated as Hebron and Damascus. Whoever shall place his back under that stone will be reinforced for carrying his own especial burden. We looked back now with a sense of familiar friendship at those grey hills, which had so lately been among the limitations of life, with a realisation of widened knowledge and added sympathies, which, on our return to the commonplace burdens of every day, should move us to thankfulness and not to regret. Each evening now the sunset glow would seem to smile to us from the faces of old friends, telling of a country beyond—fairer, purer, it may be, than ours, but in its friendships, its loves, its presentation of the beautiful, not very different from this.
We reached home in time for luncheon, and it is fair to record that the "majnoon," grunting and breathless, was in at the death.
IN GALILEE AND SAMARIA
CHAPTER I
TO NABLUS
"And then men go to Shiloh, where the ark of God with the relics were long kept ... and after men go to Shechem, formerly called Sichar ... and there is a fair and good city, called Neapolis, whence it is a day's journey to Jerusalem."
Sir John Maundeville, 1322