350 
A CEUSADE IN THE EAST. 
We sat down by the ruins of the old mosque, and spread 
our table-cloth and provisions on a stone, and while we ate 
our lunch, the natives began to gather round us in large 
numbers, and stare at us with undisguised astonishment. 
Yusef was very much disgusted with their rudeness, and gave 
vent to his displeasure in English, which struck us as some¬ 
what remarkable, inasmuch as it was not to be supposed that 
these poor wretches were learned in that tongue. The num¬ 
ber increasing, we began to think they meditated a descent 
upon our chicken, and I assumed the responsibility of telling 
Yusef that he had better drive them away. He looked em¬ 
barrassed and distressed (doubtless he felt humiliated by their 
want of manners), but mustering up his usual spirit, he ad¬ 
dressed them in Arabic, and they all talked together with 
great violence for some time. At last I saw that the Arabs 
were getting very forward and excited, and our dragoman 
very pale. I knew that Yusef was going to be furious, and 
that the next thing would be a general fight, which, consid¬ 
ering the odds against us, I was rather anxious to avoid. 
With this view, I told him to let them alone, and by no means 
to attack them. At the same time, in order to appease their 
ferocity, I threw them the bones of a chicken which I was 
picking and some crusts of brown bread, which I told them 
in good English was the best I could do for them, as I was 
very hungry, and had eaten most of the provisions. Instead 
of being thankful for small favors, they became perfectly in¬ 
censed at this, and asked Yusef, as he declared himself, if I 
meant to say that they were dogs. I have reason to suspect 
that he denied the charge most emphatically; for after a 
great deal of exciting talk, he picked up the chicken-bones 
and the bread, and in their presence, devoured both the one 
and the other with amazing avidity. No sooner had he done 
this (and I was certain it was not from hunger), than his 
jaws began to chatter, and he said : “ Gentlemen, we had 
better go on. It will take us till night to reach Nablous 
and at the same time he pulled out his purse and distributed 
a large amount of backshish among the crowd ; caught up 
the remnants of our lunch and thrust them into a bag, which 
