eastern gate; and while we paused to watch the skillful players we heard shouts, and screams, and war-cries from within the walls. We hastened in, and found that a sudden excitement had seized the Moslems in one quarter of the town. We inquired the cause, and were told by a Moslem that news had arrived that the surrounding villages were up in arms and preparing to attack Nablûs. This we found afterward was an impromptu fabrication to deceive us; the real cause of the uproar was a report that a Christian had killed, injured, or insulted a Moslem.
Fortunately the false impression was removed before any mischief was done; but the loud, angry voices of the groups of men, and even women, in the street, convinced me for the first time of the hazardous position of Christians when the fanaticism of the lower class of Moslems is fully roused. We rode unmolested through the gathering crowds, not suspecting that a general massacre of the Christians was actually then being proposed. We did not understand the facts of the case till we reached the hotel, when the tumult had quite subsided, in consequence of the discovery that it was a Christian and not a Moslem who had been slightly injured. I could see that a trifling provocation, real or imaginary, might at any moment lead to bloodshed; yet I did not entertain any fears for myself or for my brother. I felt perfectly safe there without well knowing why. A party of Moslem gentlemen spent the evening with us, and seemingly, though not avowedly, they did all in their power to remove any unfavorable impression which I might have received from witnessing the momentary excitement at sunset.
On the following day, the 6th of March, we called on Michael Kawarre, the native Protestant catechist and teacher. His brother was the Prussian Consular Agent, and their father, Samâan Kawarre, and his friends, received us very cordially, in a small but pretty vaulted chamber, with low, carpeted, and cushioned divans on three sides. A large shallow dish, containing at least two hundred
