For a time the two men held deep consultation. Then when they gripped hands in parting, each commended the other to God.
George Bullen started for the East next afternoon. His stock of Eastern garments was full and varied, and not one Eastern in a million would have known him from a Syrian native.
CHAPTER VII.
"THE MARK OF THE BEAST."
George Bullen was no stranger to Jerusalem, yet it was a strange Jerusalem that met his sight as he entered it by the Jaffa gate. For interest, picturesqueness, even amusement, there is no time so rich as at early morning, at the Jaffa gate.
Bullen had been perfectly familiar, in the old days (eight years ago) with the scene, but there were differences this morning. The long strings of donkeys and camels, laden to within the proverbial "last straw" and led by foul-smelling, unkempt Bedouins were there, as usual, in spite of the fact that railways now ran in every direction. Eastern women, robed in their loose blue cotton wrapper garments—sleeping, as well as day attire—were there in galore, only now all of them walked unveiled, whereas, in the old days, most of them were veiled.
Pilgrims from every land were pouring into the city. The cafes were crowded. The aroma of strong black coffee was often fortunately, stronger than the less pleasant odours of the insanitary streets.
Early as it was, the money changers were doing a stirring trade. Water-carriers moved about with their monotonous cry of "moyeh," supplemented, in some cases, by the same word in English—"Water."
Market garden produce, the finest in the world, and now proving how literally Palestine, under the fertilizing power of the "latter rain," had become "a fruitful garden," was piled everywhere about at the sides of the streets. Cauliflowers thirty-six inches around, with every other vegetable equally fine, melons, lemons, oranges, grapes, tomatoes, asparagus, onions, leeks, lettuce, water-cress, even garlic, all were here, with turbaned dealers sitting cross-legged among the produce.