106 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



back, and hired a camel, which was not a usual 

 conveyance, to take me from Jaffa to Jerusalem. 

 The exaltation I felt at the first sight of the walls 

 was far too high to last long. It was broken in the 

 night by the miaulings of cats, the flat roofs of the 

 houses forming an almost unlimited playground for 

 those unscriptural and half-diabolical creatures. 



In those days the course of the Jordan had 

 been untravelled, as I was assured, since the memory 

 of man, and the Dead Sea had never been navigated, 

 with one solitary and most painful exception a year 

 or two previously. Captain Costigan, whose accom- 

 plished married sister, Mrs. Bradshaw, I counted 

 among my Leamington friends, had transported a 

 boat to the Dead Sea. His man, or men, played 

 him false, emptying the water keg in order that 

 they might sooner get at the wine. He started 

 with, I think, only a single man, the wind was 

 unfavourable to return, he had to toil at the oar 

 under the blazing sun, caught sunstroke and died. 



The peace among the tribes who occupied the 

 valley of the Jordan, which had been favourable to him, 

 still continued, and I determined on an expedition 

 down it, having then temporarily thrown off the ague. 

 It seemed possible that the Jordan might be descended 

 on a small raft of inflated water skins, or "kelligs," 

 so I procured half a dozen of them, with the necessary 

 lashings and other gear, and started with a few horse- 

 men for Tiberias. I put the raft together just below 

 the small bridge through which the Jordan runs out 

 of the lake, and my escort travelled by the side of the 

 river to render assistance when needed, and to form 

 camp from time to time. It was rather a hare-brained 



