CHAPTER XIII
THROUGH THE DESERT TO PALMYRA
(1870)
Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?
The Song of Solomon.
The oracles are dumb;
No voice or hideous hum
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Milton.
RICHARD had wished ever since he came to Damascus to visit Palmyra, or Tadmor, in the wilderness. It is about one hundred and fifty miles distant in the open desert. His main reason for going there was his private wish to explore, but it was also his official duty to open up the country, now infested with hordes of wild Bedawin tribes, who attacked, robbed, and killed right and left. Several Englishmen had been to Palmyra, but always with a large escort of the tribe of El Mezráb, and Richard wanted to break through the system which this tribe had of practically levying blackmail upon travellers, which often meant as much as six thousand francs, as each man in the escort costs about £2 a head. We
