(H) 



the ground; it was one closely packed covering of 

 yellow creatures. They rose in clouds as we rode 

 through them, and swarms were going onwards to a 

 height of 30 yards and more, and on all sides as far as 

 we could see. When they first came over Beeroth, 

 women and children came out, and with loud cries and 

 anathemas beat them down with their upper garments. 

 ... A little owl flew out of his hiding-place and 

 hawked after them, and I saw a centipede capture one, 

 fold himself like lightning round it so as to hinder the 

 action of its formidable hind legs, and then probe it in 

 every vulnerable part, especially at the joints of the 

 thorax and abdomen, with its long fanged jaws. It was 

 one of the strangest sights I ever saw.' 



April 14.. c The village of not far from here is 



noted for the robberish insolence of its inhabitants. 

 Last year only, two of them tried to cut off the finger of 

 a traveller who went without sufficient protection, in 

 order to get his ring, which would not come off. Two 

 inhabitants came out and intercepted us as we were 

 going away ; they were civil enough, as we were two 

 to one and armed, but they insisted on accompanying us 

 for some distance : and it turned out, on our Dragoman 

 interrogating them, that they were the identical two 

 who last year committed the act mentioned above, and 

 so far from denying or glossing it over, they gloried in 

 it, and told the whole story with great delight.' 



April 16. (Summit of Mt. Gerizim.) C I was shown 



