Between each hill we had to descend a steep and
treacherous declivity to the dividing brook, and then to
mount as bad a place on the other side. Finally the
tired beasts began to fall, first one slipping down the
side of the hill, then the other sinking in the mire of
a. gully. Laden with our outfit, they were unable to rise
unless we lifted the pack— one on either side,— so we
had a fairly bad time o f it. Our slippers soon became
sodden and full of clay, till they twisted round our feet,
and we had to take them off and walk barefoot.
Even this was no easy matter, for at each step we
slipped. A t last a couple of country Moors came along,
and attentively watching their mode of pro-
The “ skate- gss ag th overtook and passed us, I noticed
Step, J i i 11 •
that it more resembled skating than walking,
so with a yearning thought of the good times others
were doubtless enjoying at the moment on some well-
remembered ponds, I furbished up my recollections of
the use of skates, and soon got far ahead of my poor
man, who laboriously floundered along, as though “ half
seas over.”
• The “ couple of hours to town” was thus rendered
nearly six, and when at length we arrived at our longed-
for destination, starved, wearied, footsore and soaking
wet, it was long before we could get at all passably
settled, for Moorish towns by no means excel in convenience
or accommodation for travellers. *
Such was the experience of one day, but it has had
* Only once, in all my wanderings, have I had a worse experience,
and that was when becalmed for twenty-eight hours in a basket-boat on
a flood between the Tigris and Euphrates, within sight of Baghdad: a
horse, two donkeys, four boatmen, a married couple, a soldier and myself
in a circular koffa— “ pitched within and without”— ten feet in diameter;
a cold wind driving spray which froze. Further details are better
imagined. During the night the boatmen ate my store of biscuits for
the month’s ride to Damascus.
fellows. Sometimes for many a weary mile the roads
lie over rich loamy soil, little the better for QuagmireS.
several days’ sun, cut up for a hundred yards
on either side by the feet of cattle. The best-looking
paths are sun-dried but on top, and as soon as a luckless
rider gets well on, the crust gives way, and his poor,
beast, after a plunge or two,. meekly settles down with
A WAYSIDE WELL.
(Province o f RahAmna.)
The Author’s servant drawing water.
Photograph by Dr. Rudduck.
his legs buried over the houghs, needing several men to
extricate it, one or two at each side, and one at the
tail. Treacherous and muddy streams have constantly
to be crossed, a bare-legged man going first to sound
for a bottom, and the riders following down one steep
bank, through a bog, and up another, “ liver in mouth.”
I have seen eleven out of seventeen loaded beasts
sink one after another more quickly than I could count,