nose near the ground, while his tail pointed up toward the sky somewhere,

and gave him the appearance of preparing to stand on his head. A horse

cannot look dignified in this position. We accomplished the long descent

at last, and trotted across the great Plain of Esdraelon.

Some of us will be shot before we finish this pilgrimage. The pilgrims

read "Nomadic Life" and keep themselves in a constant state of Quixotic

heroism. They have their hands on their pistols all the time, and every

now and then, when you least expect it, they snatch them out and take aim

at Bedouins who are not visible, and draw their knives and make savage

passes at other Bedouins who do not exist. I am in deadly peril always,

for these spasms are sudden and irregular, and of course I cannot tell

when to be getting out of the way. If I am accidentally murdered, some

time, during one of these romantic frenzies of the pilgrims, Mr. Grimes

must be rigidly held to answer as an accessory before the fact. If the

pilgrims would take deliberate aim and shoot at a man, it would be all

right and proper--because that man would not be in any danger; but these

random assaults are what I object to. I do not wish to see any more

places like Esdraelon, where the ground is level and people can gallop.

It puts melodramatic nonsense into the pilgrims' heads. All at once,

when one is jogging along stupidly in the sun, and thinking about

something ever so far away, here they come, at a stormy gallop, spurring

and whooping at those ridgy old sore-backed plugs till their heels fly

higher than their heads, and as they whiz by, out comes a little

potato-gun of a revolver, there is a startling little pop, and a small

pellet goes singing through the air. Now that I have begun this

613

The Innocents Abroad