A Watering Place

       Six o'clock in the morning. Last night I heard a hyena. Its voice is a loud, resounding, terrific, almost supernatural sound, splitting up the darkness into a deeper midnight. Beginning with a howl and ending with a sound something like a horse's whinnying. Here we are, squat by a fire, under the starlight with two Arabs, I knowing as much of Arabic as they of English, namely nothing. Skies above the mountains of Samaria crimsoning with the morning. A few hours pass and we come to the well of Dothan, mentioned in Bible story Cattle, donkeys, camels at the well. Women with pitchers on their heads or lowering their vessels to have them filled. Men with pails attached to strings struggling in pleasantry. The water splashing over the stones, while caravans of camels just arrived wearily lie down with a grunt and wait their turn for water. In the trough girding the well the mouths of beasts are thrust thirstily. There is Rachel watering the camels. There are young men and maidens looking at each other roughly bewitching. There are herdsmen angry with each other and ready to strike, and looking daggers because some other camel, or cow, or calf, or donkey, than their own, has won precedence at the trough.

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