282 WILD EXCITEMENT IN A VILLAGE. ch. xi. 



fury guttural sentences, illustrated by frantic gesticula- 

 tions, while the women and children kept up a deafening 

 accompaniment of shrieking, wailing, and howling, and the 

 whole formed a scene worthy of Pandemonium. It seemed 

 sufficiently clear that no hostile intentions against us were 

 expressed, but amidst the horrible din and confusion it 

 was some minutes before we were able to learn from 

 Abraham the meaning of this wild excitement. It ap- 

 peared that, as constantly happens among the mountain 

 people, there was a feud between this and a neighbouring 

 tribe ; the village had been attacked, or at least approached 

 by the enemy, and one of the villagers had been shot. 



It was evident from the first that our brave escort 

 felt extremely uneasy ; but when it became clear that the 

 object of the people was to invoke the protection of the 

 soldiers of the Sultan against further molestation, our two 

 Kaids for once thoroughly agreed on a policy of strict 

 neutrality, and in desiring to get as soon as possible out of 

 harm's way. As for us, it may be feared that we failed to 

 maintain the gravity which, to the Oriental mind, befits 

 persons of distinction. Just when the confusion was at 

 its worst, and before we well understood what it portended, 

 we happened to look up to where on the top of the nearest 

 hoiise two or three storks, each poised on one leg, were 

 looking down on the frantic crowd. There was something 

 irresistibly ludicrous in the contrast between the air of 

 solemnity that characterises these birds and the insane 

 excitement of the human crowd below that set us off in 

 a peal of laughter, which we found it hard to tune down 

 to decent seriousness. 



The uppermost anxiety of our escort being to get away 

 from any chance of being mixed up in the local troubles, 

 they proposed to push on as far as possible towards the 

 mouth of the valley, and we were all the better pleased to 

 find ourselves as near as possible to the mountains in 

 which we still hoped to effect another excursion. It was 

 not, however, practicable to go far. About two miles 



