246

INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.

before me, at the other side of a level plain, and an
hour's smart riding would have carried me there, I
was completely worn out with urging the obstinate
brute; and with muttered threats of future ven-
geance, wound my cloak around me, and hauling
my umbrella close down, and grinding my teeth, I
tried hard to think myself resigned to my fate. A
strong wind was driving the rain directly in my
face, and my mule, my cursed mule, stopped mo-
ving when I stopped beating ; and, in the very hard-
est of the storm, when I would have rushed like a
bird on the wing, turned off from the path, and fell
quietly to browsing on the grass. Afraid to disar-
range my umbrella and cloak, I sat for a mo-
ment irresolute; but the brute turned his face
round, and looked at me with such perfect non-
chalance, that I could not stand it. I raised my club
for a blow ; the wind opened my cloak in front,
puffing it out like a sail; caught under my umbrella,
and turned it inside out; and the mule suddenly
starting, under a deluge of rain I found myself
planted in the mud on the plains of Sharon. An
hour afterward I was drying my clothes in the
house of our consular agent at Ramla. There
was no fireplace in the room ; but I was hovering
over a brazier of burning charcoal. I spent that
night and all the next day in Ramla, although a
quarter of an hour would have been sufficient to
see all that it contained, which was simply nothing
more than is to be found in any other village.
The consul gave me a dry coverlet; and while