Mile after mile the way led on, rising and falling as rhythmically as though over and over the same sandy billow. Sunset had dispelled the rain, but not a star broke through the overcast sky, and only the hoarse-voiced boom of the breakers guided my steps. Now and then I halted at the summit of a ridge to search for the glimmer of a distant light and to strain my ears for some other sound than the wailing of the wind and the muffled thunder of the ocean. But even Napoleon was once forced to build a hill from which to sweep the horizon before he could orientate himself in this billowy wilderness.
The surly peasant was long since forgotten when, descending a ridge with my feet raised high at each step in anticipation of a succeeding ascent, I plunged into a slough in which I sank almost to my knees. From force of habit I plowed on. The booming of the waves grew louder, as if the land receded, and the wind from off the sea blew stronger and more chilling. Suddenly there sounded at my feet the rush of waters. I moved forward cautiously and felt the edge of what seemed to be a broad river, pouring seaward. It was an obstacle not to be surmounted on a black night. I drew back from the brink and, finding a spot that seemed to offer some resistance beneath my feet, threw myself down.
But I sank inch by inch into the morass, and fearful of being buried before morning, I rose and wandered towards the sea. On a slight rise of ground I stumbled over a heap of cobblestones, piled up at some earlier date by the peasants. I built a bed of stones under the lee of the pile, tucked my kodak in a crevice, and pulling my coat over my head, lay down. A patter of rain sounded on the coat, then another and another, faster and faster, and in less than a minute there began a downpour that abated not once during the night. The heap afforded small protection against the piercing wind, and, being short and semicircular in shape, compelled me to lie motionless on my right side, for only my body protected the kodak and films beneath. The rain quickly soaked through my clothing and ran in rivulets along my skin. The wind turned colder and whistled through the chinks of the pile. The sea boomed incessantly, and in the surrounding marshes colonies of unwearying frogs croaked a dismal refrain. Thus, on the fringe of the Mediterranean, I watched out the old year, and, though not a change in the roar of the sea, the tattoo of the storm, nor the note of a frog, marked the hour, I was certainly awake at the waning.
An Oriental proverb tells us that “He who goes not to bed will be early up.” He who goes to bed on a rock pile will also be up betimes—though with difficulty. The new year was peering over the Lebanon when I rose to my feet. My left leg, though creaking like a rusty armor, sustained me; but I had no sooner shifted my weight to the right than it gave way like a thing of straw and let me down with disconcerting suddenness in the mud. By dint of long massaging, I recovered the use of the limb; but even then an attempt to walk in a straight line sent me round in a circle from left to right. Daylight showed the river to be lined with quicksands. It was broad and swift, but not deep, and some distance up the stream I effected a crossing without sinking below my armpits. Far off to the southeast lay a small forest. A village, perhaps, was hidden in its shade, and I dashed eagerly forward through a sea of mud.
The forest turned out to be a large orange grove, surrounded by a high hedge and a turgid, moat-like stream. There was not a human habitation in sight. The trees were heavily laden with yellow fruit. I cast the contents of my knapsack on the ground, plunged through moat and hedge, and tore savagely at the tempting fare. With half-filled bag I regained the plain, caught up my scattered belongings, and struck southward, peeling an orange. The skin was close to an inch thick, the fruit inside would have aroused the dormant appetite of an Epicurean. Greedily I stuffed a generous quarter into my mouth—and stopped stock-still with a sensation as of a sudden blow in the back of the neck. The orange was as green as the Emerald Isle, its juice more acrid than a half-and-half of vinegar and gall! I peeled another and another. Each was more sour and bitter than its forerunner. Tearfully I dumped the treasure trove in the mire and stumbled on.
Two hours later, under a blazing sun—so great is the contrast in this hungry land between night and unclouded day—I entered a native village, more wretched if possible than that of the night before. Scowls and snarls greeted me in almost every hut; but one hideously tattooed female pushed away the proffered coins and thrust into my hands two bread-sheets the ragged edge of which showed the marks of infant teeth. They were as tender as a sea boot, as palatable as a bath towel, and satisfied my hunger as a peanut would have satisfied that of an elephant. But no amount of vociferation could induce the villagers to part with another morsel, and, thankful for small favors, I trudged on.
A well-marked path, inundated here and there and peopled by bands of natives, turned westward beyond an ancient aqueduct, and at noonday I passed through the fortified gate of Acre. The power of faranchee appetites was the absorbing topic of conversation in the stronghold when I fell in with a band of emigrating Bedouins, and departed. The white city of Haiffa, perched on the nose of recumbent Mt. Carmel across the bay, seemed but a stone’s throw distant. It was an illusion of sea and sun, however. Long hours I splashed after the Arabs through surf and rivulet along the narrow beach, my shoes swinging over my shoulder, and night had fallen before we parted in the Haiffan market place.
At a Jewish inn, in Haiffa, I made the acquaintance of a fellow-countryman. He was a dragoman of a well-known tourist company, born in Nazareth, of Arab blood, and had never been outside the confines of Asia Minor. His grandfather had lived a few years in New York, and, though the good old gentleman had long since been gathered to his fathers, his descendants were still entitled to flaunt his naturalization papers in the faces of the Turkish police and tax-gatherers and to greet travelers from the new world as compatriots. Nazry Kawar, the dragoman, was overjoyed at the meeting. He dedicated the afternoon to drawing, for my benefit, sketches of the routes of Palestine, and took his leave, promising to write me a letter of introduction to his uncle, a Nazarene dentist.
Early the next morning I passed through the vaulted market of Haiffa and out upon the road to Nazareth. It was really a road, repaired not long before for the passage of the German Emperor; but already the labor of the Sultan’s servants had been half undone by the peasants, to whom a highway is useful only as an excellent place in which to pitch stones picked up in the adjoining fields. For once the day was clear and balmy and a sunshine as of June illuminated the rugged fields and their tillers. Towards noon, in the bleak hills beyond the first village, two Bedouins, less bloodthirsty than hungry, fell upon me while I ate my lunch by the wayside. Though they bombarded me with stones from opposite sides, they threw like boarding-school misses and dodged like ocean liners, and I had wrought more injury than I had received when I challenged them to a race down the highway. They were no mean runners, but the appearance over the first hill of a road-repair gang, a score of bronze-faced, sinewy women under command of a skirt-clad male, forced them to postpone their laudable attempt to win favor with the houris.
