and appeared clever, penetrating, and shrewd, but obstinate and tyrannical, and was the head of a very troublesome faction.
The next morning Sheikh Mûssa came that I might finish his portrait. He said, "They are idiots and 'majnûni' who believe that a man is in danger of losing his soul if a resemblance of him be made on paper with lines of a pencil point—but it is not well to make him of wood or to carve him in stone." He added, "In this land there is much ignorance and folly, but we must hold our peace, for if we speak the thoughts of our hearts to fools they will say, 'It is your folly and not ours—we are wise—ye are fools who doubt our wisdom. Thus the wise hold their peace and the foolish ones of the earth are made proud and strong in their folly. Thus it is decreed."
The afternoon was especially bright and balmy, and my brother spared time to ride out with me in company with M. Zeller and a few Protestant Arabs. We passed out of the town at the east gate and went down the Nablûs valley in a south-easterly direction, with Mount Ebal on our left and Mount Gerizim, nearer to us, on our right; the former looked rather rugged and bare, but the latter was here and there clothed with trees and herbage. Pointing to a tree growing far above us, Ody Azam said, "That old olive-tree is the largest in the whole country; its trunk is so thick, that if four tall men joined hands, they could not entirely embrace it."
We crossed and recrossed winding streams and artificial water-courses, in the gardens and cultivated fields of the winding valley. After half an hour's ride we paused and alighted by an isolated and fallen granite column, half buried in the earth, at the foot of Mount Gerizim. Near to it was a pit, almost filled up with rubbish and earth, and encircled with large hewn stones—"Now, Jacob's well was there." My brother drew my attention to it, saying, "It was to show you this choked-up fountain that I brought you here to-day; for Jews, Samaritans, Christians, and
