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A Ride Across Palestine By: Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) |
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A RIDE ACROSS PALESTINE by Anthony Trollope
Circumstances took me to the Holy Land without a companion, and
compelled me to visit Bethany, the Mount of Olives, and the Church
of the Sepulchre alone. I acknowledge myself to be a gregarious
animal, or, perhaps, rather one of those which nature has intended
to go in pairs. At any rate I dislike solitude, and especially
travelling solitude, and was, therefore, rather sad at heart as I
sat one night at Z 's hotel, in Jerusalem, thinking over my proposed
wanderings for the next few days. Early on the following morning I
intended to start, of course on horseback, for the Dead Sea, the
banks of Jordan, Jericho, and those mountains of the wilderness
through which it is supposed that Our Saviour wandered for the forty
days when the devil tempted him. I would then return to the Holy
City, and remaining only long enough to refresh my horse and wipe
the dust from my hands and feet, I would start again for Jaffa, and
there catch a certain Austrian steamer which would take me to Egypt.
Such was my programme, and I confess that I was but ill contented
with it, seeing that I was to be alone during the time. I had already made all my arrangements, and though I had no reason
for any doubt as to my personal security during the trip, I did not
feel altogether satisfied with them. I intended to take a French
guide, or dragoman, who had been with me for some days, and to put
myself under the peculiar guardianship of two Bedouin Arabs, who
were to accompany me as long as I should remain east of Jerusalem.
This travelling through the desert under the protection of Bedouins
was, in idea, pleasant enough; and I must here declare that I did
not at all begrudge the forty shillings which I was told by our
British consul that I must pay them for their trouble, in accordance
with the established tariff. But I did begrudge the fact of the
tariff. I would rather have fallen in with my friendly Arabs, as it
were by chance, and have rewarded their fidelity at the end of our
joint journeyings by a donation of piastres to be settled by myself,
and which, under such circumstances, would certainly have been as
agreeable to them as the stipulated sum. In the same way I dislike
having waiters put down in my bill. I find that I pay them twice
over, and thus lose money; and as they do not expect to be so
treated, I never have the advantage of their civility. The world, I
fear, is becoming too fond of tariffs. "A tariff!" said I to the consul, feeling that the whole romance of
my expedition would be dissipated by such an arrangement. "Then
I'll go alone; I'll take a revolver with me." "You can't do it, sir," said the consul, in a dry and somewhat angry
tone. "You have no more right to ride through that country without
paying the regular price for protection, than you have to stop in Z
's hotel without settling the bill." I could not contest the point, so I ordered my Bedouins for the
appointed day, exactly as I would send for a ticket porter at home,
and determined to make the best of it. The wild unlimited sands,
the desolation of the Dead Sea, the rushing waters of Jordan, the
outlines of the mountains of Moab; those things the consular tariff
could not alter, nor deprive them of the glories of their
association. I had submitted, and the arrangements had been made. Joseph, my
dragoman, was to come to me with the horses and an Arab groom at
five in the morning, and we were to encounter our Bedouins outside
the gate of St. Stephen, down the hill, where the road turns, close
to the tomb of the Virgin. I was sitting alone in the public room at the hotel, filling my
flask with brandy, for matters of primary importance I never leave
to servant, dragoman, or guide, when the waiter entered, and said
that a gentleman wished to speak with me. The gentleman had not
sent in his card or name; but any gentleman was welcome to me in my
solitude, and I requested that the gentleman might enter... Continue reading book >>
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Genres for this book |
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Fiction |
Literature |
Short stories |
Travel |
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