Bible. I also took along a towel and a cake of soap, to inspire respect

in the Arabs, who would take me for a king in disguise.

We were to select our horses at 3 P.M. At that hour Abraham, the

dragoman, marshaled them before us. With all solemnity I set it down

here, that those horses were the hardest lot I ever did come across, and

their accoutrements were in exquisite keeping with their style. One

brute had an eye out; another had his tail sawed off close, like a

rabbit, and was proud of it; another had a bony ridge running from his

neck to his tail, like one of those ruined aqueducts one sees about Rome,

and had a neck on him like a bowsprit; they all limped, and had sore

backs, and likewise raw places and old scales scattered about their

persons like brass nails in a hair trunk; their gaits were marvelous to

contemplate, and replete with variety under way the procession looked

like a fleet in a storm. It was fearful. Blucher shook his head and

said:

That dragon is going to get himself into trouble fetching these old

crates out of the hospital the way they are, unless he has got a permit."

I said nothing. The display was exactly according to the guide-book, and

were we not traveling by the guide-book? I selected a certain horse

because I thought I saw him shy, and I thought that a horse that had

spirit enough to shy was not to be despised.

At 6 o'clock P.M., we came to a halt here on the breezy summit of a

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The Innocents Abroad