We had had a glimpse, from a mountain top, of the Dead Sea, lying like a
blue shield in the plain of the Jordan, and now we were marching down a
close, flaming, rugged, desolate defile, where no living creature could
enjoy life, except, perhaps, a salamander. It was such a dreary,
repulsive, horrible solitude! It was the “wilderness” where John
preached, with camel’s hair about his loins—raiment enough—but he never
could have got his locusts and wild honey here. We were moping along
down through this dreadful place, every man in the rear. Our guards—two
gorgeous young Arab sheiks, with cargoes of swords, guns, pistols, and
daggers on board—were loafing ahead.
“Bedouins!”
Every man shrunk up and disappeared in his clothes like a mud-turtle. My
first impulse was to dash forward and destroy the Bedouins. My second
was to dash to the rear to see if there were any coming in that
direction. I acted on the latter impulse. So did all the others. If any
Bedouins had approached us, then, from that point of compass, they would
have paid dearly for their rashness. We all remarked that, afterwards.
There would have been scenes of riot and bloodshed there that no pen
could describe. I know that, because each man told what he would have
done, individually; and such a medley of strange and unheard-of
inventions of cruelty you could not conceive of. One man said he had
calmly made up his mind to perish where he stood, if need be, but never
yield an inch; he was going to wait, with deadly patience, till he could
count the stripes on the first Bedouin’s jacket, and then count them and
let him have it. Another was going to sit still till the first lance
reached within an inch of his breast, and then dodge it and seize it. I
forbear to tell what he was going to do to that Bedouin that owned it.
It makes my blood run cold to think of it.