pilgrimage, I intend to go through with it, though sooth to say, nothing

but the most desperate valor has kept me to my purpose up to the present

time. I do not mind Bedouins,--I am not afraid of them; because neither

Bedouins nor ordinary Arabs have shown any disposition to harm us, but I

do feel afraid of my own comrades.

Arriving at the furthest verge of the Plain, we rode a little way up a

hill and found ourselves at Endor, famous for its witch. Her descendants

are there yet. They were the wildest horde of half-naked savages we have

found thus far. They swarmed out of mud bee-hives; out of hovels of the

dry-goods box pattern; out of gaping caves under shelving rocks; out of

crevices in the earth. In five minutes the dead solitude and silence of

the place were no more, and a begging, screeching, shouting mob were

struggling about the horses' feet and blocking the way. "Bucksheesh!

bucksheesh! bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh!" It was Magdala over

again, only here the glare from the infidel eyes was fierce and full of

hate. The population numbers two hundred and fifty, and more than half

the citizens live in caves in the rock. Dirt, degradation and savagery

are Endor's specialty. We say no more about Magdala and Deburieh now.

Endor heads the list. It is worse than any Indian 'campoodie'. The hill

is barren, rocky, and forbidding. No sprig of grass is visible, and only

one tree. This is a fig-tree, which maintains a precarious footing among

the rocks at the mouth of the dismal cavern once occupied by the

veritable Witch of Endor. In this cavern, tradition says, Saul, the

king, sat at midnight, and stared and trembled, while the earth shook,

the thunders crashed among the hills, and out of the midst of fire and

614

The Innocents Abroad