Whilst the question of his life and
death was debated he was riding in front of our party, and there
was something in the anxious writhing of his supple limbs that
seemed to express a sense of his false position, and struck me as
highly comic. I had no crotchet at that time against the
punishment of death, but I was unused to blood, and the proposed
victim looked so thoroughly capable of enjoying life (if he could
only get to the other side of the river), that I thought it would
be hard for him to die merely in order to give me a character for
energy. Acting on the result of these considerations, and
reserving to myself a free and unfettered discretion to have the
poor villain shot at any future moment, I magnanimously decided
that for the present he should live, and not die.
I bathed in the Dead Sea. The ground covered by the water sloped
so gradually, that I was not only forced to "sneak in," but to walk
through the water nearly a quarter of a mile before I could get out
of my depth. When at last I was able to attempt to dive, the salts
held in solution made my eyes smart so sharply, that the pain which
I thus suffered, together with the weakness occasioned by want of
food, made me giddy and faint for some moments, but I soon grew
better.
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