DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12665#0166
150
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
staring around for a moment, leaning on his elbow,,
he fixed his eyes on the sheik, and with a voice
the like of which can only issue from the bottom of
a Turk's throat, thundered out, " Who are you ?"
The sheik was for a moment confounded, and made
no answer. " Who are you V reiterated the gov-
ernor, in a voice even louder than before. " I am
Ibrahim Pacha's man," said the sheik. " I know
that," answered the governor ; " none but Ibrahim
Pacha's men dare come here ; but have you no
name V " Sheik El Alouin," said the Arab, with
the pride of a chief of Bedouins, and looking for a
moment as if he stood in the desert at the head of
his lawless tribe. " I conducted the pacha's cara-
van to Akaba ;" and pointing to me, " I have con-
ducted safe, through all the bad Arabs, Abdef
Hasis, the friend of the pachaand then the gov-
ernor, like a wild animal balked in his spring,
turned his eyes from the sheik to me, as for the
first time sensible of my presence. I showed him
my firman, and told him that I did not mean to
give him much trouble ; that all I wanted was that
he would send me on immediately to Bethlehem.
I had no wish to stop at Hebron, though the
first city in the Holy Land, and hallowed by high
and holy associations. The glory of the house of
David had for ever departed. I was anxious to
put an outpost between myself and the desert;
and I had an indefinable longing to sleep my first
night in the Holy Land, in the city where our
Saviour was born. But the goveraor positively
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
staring around for a moment, leaning on his elbow,,
he fixed his eyes on the sheik, and with a voice
the like of which can only issue from the bottom of
a Turk's throat, thundered out, " Who are you ?"
The sheik was for a moment confounded, and made
no answer. " Who are you V reiterated the gov-
ernor, in a voice even louder than before. " I am
Ibrahim Pacha's man," said the sheik. " I know
that," answered the governor ; " none but Ibrahim
Pacha's men dare come here ; but have you no
name V " Sheik El Alouin," said the Arab, with
the pride of a chief of Bedouins, and looking for a
moment as if he stood in the desert at the head of
his lawless tribe. " I conducted the pacha's cara-
van to Akaba ;" and pointing to me, " I have con-
ducted safe, through all the bad Arabs, Abdef
Hasis, the friend of the pachaand then the gov-
ernor, like a wild animal balked in his spring,
turned his eyes from the sheik to me, as for the
first time sensible of my presence. I showed him
my firman, and told him that I did not mean to
give him much trouble ; that all I wanted was that
he would send me on immediately to Bethlehem.
I had no wish to stop at Hebron, though the
first city in the Holy Land, and hallowed by high
and holy associations. The glory of the house of
David had for ever departed. I was anxious to
put an outpost between myself and the desert;
and I had an indefinable longing to sleep my first
night in the Holy Land, in the city where our
Saviour was born. But the goveraor positively