392 
A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 
all that to the imagination of the reader, and presenting a 
sketch of what impressed me as the most picturesque feature 
in the scene. 
The position is striking, and not altogether ungraceful. It 
has the advantage of making one pair of legs answer a double 
purpose—that of carrying the owner across the river, and at 
the same time the Howadji who is mounted upon the hack 
of the owner; and it presents the Howadji in rather a more 
elevated point of view than if the legs of both parties were 
in the water; which, however, sometimes happens before 
they reach the opposite bank. Should the Arab who acts 
the part of carrier in these cases, accidentally step upon the 
point of a sharp stick, and suddenly let go his hold, the prob¬ 
ability is, that the hold of the gentleman upon his back will 
reduce both parties to a level, but not to an equality; because 
the more elevated naturally falls underneath, and he not only 
suffers from the disaster, but is obliged in the end to pay 
backshish for a back that failed to carry him over, and no 
deduction made for getting his own back saturated with mud 
and water. 
At one of these fords we met our old friend Maximilian, the 
celebrated Greek patriarch, who, in company with a high- 
priest of the same church, performed his pilgrimage to Jeru¬ 
salem in a basket. Experience had taught him the danger 
of depending upon a mule when a river was to be crossed ; 
for, on one occasion, the mule upon which the two baskets 
were hung—that of Maximilian on one side, and that of the 
high-priest on the other—took it into his head to lie down, 
which he did in spite of all the Arabs, and it was with diffi¬ 
culty that the venerable pilgrims were rescued from a watery 
grave. Hence, the wily old patriarch, being too infirm to 
stand much moving, hit upon the expedient of having him¬ 
self carried across all future rivers in the following manner : 
He caused a stout Arab to get under the basket when they 
arrived at a river; and at a given signal the ropes being un¬ 
fastened from the mule, and placed in the hands of the car¬ 
rier, so as to form a secure way of balancing the load, the 
basket and the patriarch were borne off at the same time, 
