LOVE AND THE PATRIARCH I was staying for some weeks at Howard's Hotel in Jerusalem (Iskender Awwad, the dragoman, had transformed himself into the Chevalier Alexander Howard, a worthy, if choleric, gentleman, and a good friend of mine), and I rode out every day upon a decent pony, which I had discovered in the stables at the back of the hotel.

One afternoon a nephew of the stable-owner, who was something of a blood, proposed that we should ride together out towards Bethlehem.

His horse was a superb and showy stallion, quite beyond his power to manage properly.
My modest steed was fired to emulation, and, once beyond the outskirts of Jerusalem, we tore away.

At a corner where the road was narrow between rocks, I do not know exactly how, the big horse cannoned into mine and overturned him.

I pitched headlong on some stones.
My first impression was that I had struck a wet spot in that arid wilderness.