A GAZELLE HUNT. 
337 
provisions. One mule especially labored under an unusual 
combination of disadvantages. Yusef had purchased several 
chickens in Nazareth, of which he designed making a stew 
that evening, and in order to keep them fresh he had tied 
their legs together and fastened them in a live state on the 
top of the cooking utensils. The pans and kettles, sliding 
down on each side of the mule, remained hanging by the 
handles underneath, and banged away there against each 
other in the most terrific manner; and the chickens, having 
nothing to balance them on top, slipped over behind, and 
hung between his hind-legs, where they got up such a cack¬ 
ling and fluttering that the unfortunate animal, driven to 
distraction by the noise and other causes, went perfectly in¬ 
sane with fright, and ran all round in a circle for ten minutes, 
by which time every cord was broken, and our entire stock 
of provisions and implements of domestic economy deposited 
at intervals over nearly a hundred acres of ground. The other 
mules had knapsacks, mattresses, bundles of clothes, and a 
variety of other articles hanging over them and under them; 
but by dint of hard kicking, and an occasional fit of rolling, 
they got rid of them at last, and went their way at random. 
Meantime the horses branched off in different directions, and 
made the most frantic efforts to overtake the game. The 
horse of the English Captain, though equal in spirit to any in 
the party, seemed least likely to accomplish the general ob¬ 
ject, on account of some peculiarity in the construction of one 
of his fore-legs, the chief tendon of which had been growing 
shorter and shorter every day from the time of leaving Beirut, 
and was now so short that he was forced to do all his running 
on three legs. The animal upon which the tall Southerner 
was mounted was a slender little iron-gray which also had a 
very remarkable peculiarity. It was the misfortune of this 
horse to be possessed of a body that tapered off toward the 
hind part without the slightest symptom of a stomach. No 
matter how much corn or barley he ate of nights, or how 
tight the saddle-girths were drawn in the morning, he was 
always so deficient in stomach, that in two hours from the 
time of starting, the girths invariably reached his hind-legs, 
P 
