The ground was luxuriant with colocynth, whose runners and fruit lookd festive in the early light. The Juheina said both leaves and stalks were excellent food for such horses as would eat them, and defended from thirst for many hours. The Ageyl said that the best aperient was to drink camel-milk from cups of the scooped-out rind. The Ateibi said that he was sufficiently moved if he just rubbed the juice of the fruit on the soles of his feet. The Moor Hamed said that the dried pith made good tinder. One point however they were all agreed, that the whole plant was useless or poisonous as fodder for camels.
[...] their too-great experience discouraged our feeble teams, making them ashamed to exhibit their inferior talent: so Newcomb and Hornby remained as individualists, barren of the seven-fold fruits of imitation.
The southernemost [town in Syria], Jerusalem, was a squalid town, which every Semitic religion had made holy. Christians and Mohammedans came there on pilgrimage to the shrines of its past, and some Jews looked to it for the political future of their race. These united forces of the past and the future were so strong that the city almost failed to have a present.
We should have more bright breats in the Army if each man was able without witnesses, to write out his own despatch.
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