"The rest will be simple!" Haifa was crowded with Syrians of all sorts, and there were two or three staff officers in the uniform of Feisul's army lounging on the platform, who conned new arrivals with a sort of childlike solicitude, as if by looking in a man's face they could judge whether he was friendly to their cause or not.

Mabel had wired to her friend, and was met at the station, so we had nothing to worry over for the present on her score.
Our own troubles began when we reached the only hotel and found it crowded.

The proprietor, a little wizened, pockmarked Arab in a black alpaca jacket and yellow pants, with a tarboosh balanced forward at a pessimistic angle, suggested that there might be guests in the hotel who would let us share their beds...
"Although there will be no reduction of the price to either party in that event," he hastened to explain.
It was a wonder of an hotel.

You could smell the bugs and the sanitary arrangements from the front-door step, and although the whole place had been lime-washed, dirt from all over the Near East was accumulating on the dead white, making it look leprous and depressing.
The place fronted on a main street, with its back toward the Bay of Acre at a point where scavengers used the beach for a dumping place.

There was a hostel of British officers about a mile away, where Grim might have been able to procure beds for the whole party; but I noticed no less than five men who followed us up from the station and seemed to be keeping a watchful eye on Yussuf Dakmar and it was a sure bet that if we should show our hands so far as to mess with British officers, the train next day would be packed with men to whom murder would be simple amusement.
Yet Grim and Jeremy needed sleep and so did Narayan Singh.