Going Down From Jerusalem

It is a mushroom trading settlement, for these six years a struggling market-place; they had digged up the ruins of the ancient city to make new habitations: a turn of the spade, and here are the squared blocks of fallen palaces ready to hand. The kaimakam said that we must ride thence to Gaza on our way to El Arish, or ride no farther on our journey, lest we come to harm on the plains, where, said he, were many Bedouins and no familiar paths. "Everybody," said this timid man, "rides to Gaza, and therefore must you. If you took the path of your choosing, and met with evil treatment, how should I escape?" We would not buy his acquiescence (were that his meaning), but quietly planned to depart in the early morning, choosing the shorter way to the half-way station of Rafieh, which was to our liking. There at Beersheba are Abraham's wells; and this being the very frontier of the hardiest tourist wanderings?the farthest objective of all those devoted pilgrimages which astound and disquiet the simple traveller?we determined that our departure thence upon the untrodden ways into Egypt should in some meet way be signalized. It was no flagrant expression of distaste for trip-ticket company, which, in Palestine, whatever elsewhere, is somehow peculiarly grateful even to the hapless apostate (as I have been told)?like the sweet simplicity of children. Our small celebration should be like a saucy snap of the fingers directed at whatsoever had been irksome or fearful or bew...