All next day I followed the faintly marked path that clung closely to the coast. Here and there a care-worn peasant toiled behind the wooden plow that the tiny oxen dragged back and forth across the fields. At times, when the peasant turned to look at me, his plow struck a root or a rock, and he was obliged to pick himself up out of the mire. Nineteen showers flung their waters upon me during that day. Sometimes these showers were separated from each other by periods of the brightest sunshine.
Late in the afternoon the sun was smiling bravely, when the path turned into a well kept road winding through a forest of orange trees, where countless natives were stripping the overloaded branches of their fruit. I had reached the ancient town of Sidon. From the first shop in the outskirts of the place, the bazaar was one long orange-colored streak.
I spent the night at a caravan inn. The next day I went on southward, guided by the booming of the Mediterranean. Mile after mile the way led over slippery ridges of the mountain chain, through streams and across marshes in which I sank half way to my knees.
The gloomy day was drawing to a close when I began to look for shelter. But I found none, and a gnawing hunger made me hurry on. I was crossing a crumbling stone bridge that humped its back across a wandering stream when an unhoped-for sight caught my eye. Miles away, at the end of a low cape, rose the slender tower of a Mohammedan church, surrounded by a jumble of flat buildings. I hurried toward it.
Dusk turned to utter darkness. Far ahead twinkled a few lights, that seemed to move on before me as fast as I tried to draw near them. The flat sand gave way to rocks and boulders against which I barked my shins repeatedly.
I had almost given up trying to reach the village that night, when the baying of dogs fell on my ear.
In the dim moonlight I noticed a faintly marked path up the sloping beach. I followed it across sand-hills, and came up against a fort-like building, pierced in the center by a gateway. Two flickering lights under the archway cast wavering shadows over a group of Arabs huddled in their blankets near the gate. When I stepped before them out of the blackness of the night, they sprang to their feet with excited cries.
I pushed through the group, and plunged into crooked alleyways filled with wretched hovels. All was silent in the bazaars; but the keeper of one shop was still dozing over his pan of coals between a stack of aged bread-sheets and a simmering kettle of sour-milk soup. I prodded him until he was half awake, and gathering up the bread-sheets sat down in his place. He dipped up a bowl of soup from force of habit; then, catching sight of me for the first time, spilled the jelly-like mixture over my outstretched legs.
The second serving reached me in the proper manner. A group of Arabs gathered outside in the circle of light cast by the shop lamp, and watched me eat. I finished the bowl of soup and called for a second. They stared, astonished. Again I sent the bowl back. The bystanders burst into a roar of laughter, and the boldest stepped forward to pat their stomachs mockingly.
I inquired for an inn. A ragged giant stepped into the arc of light, and crying “Taala,” set off to the westward. Almost at a trot he led the way by cobbled streets, down the center of which ran an open sewer, up hill and down. The corners we turned were so many that I could not count them.