After reaching our encampment (at Jenin in Palestine) our dragoman told
us that the people of the village were so quarrelsome and thievish that
it was never safe to stop a night there without an extra guard, and he
had engaged the brother of the sheik of the village to occupy this
responsible post. This man was a great, tall, athletic-looking fellow,
but a deaf mute. While we were taking our dinner he came into our tent,
brandishing a revolver. He expressed to us by signs how safely we might
lie down and rest, because he (brave fellow as he was) by the aid of
that revolver would protect us from all harm. Directly after our
waiter--Dominicho--came in and informed us that the guard had borrowed
this revolver from our dragoman, Ali Solomon, but that he stood in
mortal dread of the weapon he had flourished before us so heroically;
that he refused to touch it till all the charges were withdrawn from it.
With such a champion for our defender what cause could there be for
fear?--_In Bible Lands._