The village was arranged in steps upon a mountain side, the roofs of houses on the lower level serving as approach to those above. On all the steep slopes round about it there were orchards, with now and then a flat-roofed house among the trees.
Rashîd came out to meet us, accompanied by certain of the elders, among whom I looked in vain for the owner of the land we were to visit. My first inquiry was for him. Rashîd replied: 'He is unpopular. I went to the chief people of the village'—he waved his hand towards the persons who escorted him—'and they have set apart a house and stable for your Honour's use.'
The house turned out to be a single room, cube-shaped, and furnished only with some matting. The stable, part of the same building, was exactly like it, except that it was open at one end.
We had our supper at a tavern by the village spring, surrounded by a friendly crowd of fellâhîn. Again I looked for the old gentleman whom I had come to see, and whispered my surprise at not beholding him. Rashîd again replied: 'He is unpopular.'
Returning to the house with me, Rashîd arranged my bed; put candle, matches, cigarettes within my reach; fastened the shutters of two windows; and retired, informing me that he and Suleymân were sleeping at the dwelling of the headman of the place.
I had got into my bed upon the floor when there came a knocking on the solid wooden shutters which Rashîd had closed. I went and opened one of them a little way. It was moonlight, but the window looked into the gloom of olive trees. A voice out of the shadows questioned:
'Is it thou, the Englishman?'
It was the owner of the land, who then reproached me in heartbroken tones because I had not let him know the hour of my arrival, that he and his three sons might have gone forth upon the road to meet me. The owners of the place where now I lodged were his chief enemies. He begged me to steal forth at once and come with him. When I refused, he groaned despairingly and left me with the words:
'Believe not anything they say about us or the property.'
I closed the shutter and went back to bed. But it was hot. I rose again and opened both the windows so as to secure whatever breeze there was, and, after a long spell of angry tossing due to sandflies, fell asleep. When I awoke the room was full of daylight and a murmur which I first mistook for that of insects, but soon found out to be the voice of a considerable crowd of human beings. At every window was a press of faces and of women's head-veils, and children raised upon their mothers' shoulders. I heard a child's sad wail: 'O mother, lift me up that I, too, may behold the unbeliever!'