THRILLING ALARM IN JERICHO. 
381 
vain the Sheik expostulated with him ; the ass was not to be 
humbugged in that way ; his head was too long for that; so 
he remained doggedly where he was, and seemed to have 
made up his mind so to remain as long as he chose. At this 
crisis, the conflict of opinion in regard to the right of posses¬ 
sion, appearing to be direct and positive, and to admit of no 
compromise between the parties, the Sheik went up to a bag 
that hung upon a post, and took out some barley, which he 
held out in his hand as an additional argument. The ass 
looked at the barley, smelled it, found that it was good, con¬ 
cluded that the argument was based upon just principles, and 
quietly followed the Sheik into the goat and chicken depart¬ 
ment, where he was tied fast to a post, and severely flogged 
by that individual for refusing to be convinced at first. I con¬ 
sidered that there was a moral in the incident, and noted it 
down for future study. 
By the time we had scraped up the ass’s bed, and made 
our own beds in place of it, Yusef had boiled some coffee, 
which was very refreshing to us after our day’s journey. We 
had a good supper of stewed chicken in due time, which we 
shared with the Sheik ; and about ten o’clock, being tired, we 
turned in to sleep. In order to give a proper understanding 
of the startling adventure that befell us during the night, it will 
be necessary to go back a little, and mention that not more than 
three or four nights previously a large party of armed Bedouins 
had made a descent upon the village, and in spite of the vigil¬ 
ance of the Turkish guard, who were sound asleep and not to 
be wakened by the cries of the villagers, had captured and 
driven off a number of cows and sheep, and threatened to kill 
every body in the village the next time they came down. A 
similar invasion, or perhaps a worse one, was nightly ap¬ 
prehended ; so that the alarm was general, and all the live 
stock was driven into the houses for safe keeping. This the 
old Sheik communicated to Yusef with great coolness, consid¬ 
ering the danger; but it was not so taken by Yusef. His 
eyes seemed as if they would start out of his head, when he 
was informed of this unpleasant state of things, and it was 
some time before he could calm himself sufficiently to give us 
