ARAB GUARD TO THE DEAD SEA. 
377 
for Jericho without even a skirmish with the rascally inhabit¬ 
ants of the Bedouin country. I afterward found that I was 
quite right in my suspicion as to the cause of his anxiety ; 
for he assured me, after we had mounted our horses and left 
the river some distance behind us, that such indeed was the 
case, and that he had a great mind to go back again and 
spend the night there watching for them. 
Having finished my lunch about the same time that Yusef 
got through killing the six Bedouins, I took my tin can which 
I had purchased in Jerusalem, and accompanied by my friend 
the tall Southerner, who was quietly smoking his chibouck 
most of this time, went down to the river and filled it with 
water for the benefit of some acquaintances at home. Every 
drop of that water, I intended distributing with miserly dis¬ 
cretion, and when I came to the last drop it was my design 
to fill the can again with fresh water out of the nearest 
pump, and still protest on my veracity, as a traveler, that 
it contained water which I had myself dipped up out of the 
Jordan. 
