An English servant of one of
the gentlemen of the mission procured it for me, on the back of
A
little mare, which (as I am a light weight) did not turn a hair in
the course of the day's march - and after we got quit of the ugly,
stony, clattering, mountainous Abou Gosh district, into the fair
undulating plain, which stretches to Ramleh, carried me into the
town at a pleasant hand-gallop. A negro, of preternatural
ugliness, in a yellow gown, with a crimson handkerchief streaming
over his head, digging his shovel spurs into the lean animal he
rode, and driving three others before - swaying backwards and
forwards on his horse, now embracing his ears, and now almost under
his belly, screaming "yallah" with the most frightful shrieks, and
singing country songs - galloped along ahead of me. I acquired one
of his poems pretty well, and could imitate his shriek accurately;
but I shall not have the pleasure of singing it to you in England.
I had forgotten the delightful dissonance two days after, both the
negro's and that of a real Arab minstrel, a donkey-driver
accompanying our baggage, who sang and grinned with the most
amusing good-humour.
We halted, in the middle of the day, in a little wood of olive-
trees, which forms almost the only shelter between Jaffa and
Jerusalem, except that afforded by the orchards in the odious
village of Abou Gosh, through which we went at a double quick pace.
Under the olives, or up in the branches, some of our friends took a
siesta.
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