how it looks--think of how it would read, to self-reliant Americans, that

we went sneaking through this deserted wilderness under the protection of

this masquerading Arab, who would break his neck getting out of the

country if a man that was a man ever started after him. It was a mean,

low, degrading position. Why were we ever told to bring navy revolvers

with us if we had to be protected at last by this infamous star-spangled

scum of the desert? These appeals were vain--the dragoman only smiled

and shook his head.

I rode to the front and struck up an acquaintance with King

Solomon-in-all-his-glory, and got him to show me his lingering eternity

of a gun. It had a rusty flint lock; it was ringed and barred and plated

with silver from end to end, but it was as desperately out of the

perpendicular as are the billiard cues of '49 that one finds yet in

service in the ancient mining camps of California. The muzzle was eaten

by the rust of centuries into a ragged filigree-work, like the end of a

burnt-out stove-pipe. I shut one eye and peered within--it was flaked

with iron rust like an old steamboat boiler. I borrowed the ponderous

pistols and snapped them. They were rusty inside, too--had not been

loaded for a generation. I went back, full of encouragement, and

reported to the guide, and asked him to discharge this dismantled

fortress. It came out, then. This fellow was a retainer of the Sheik

of Tiberias. He was a source of Government revenue. He was to the

Empire of Tiberias what the customs are to America. The Sheik imposed

guards upon travelers and charged them for it. It is a lucrative source

of emolument, and sometimes brings into the national treasury as much as

586

The Innocents Abroad