So I told Ahmed to show me the schools.
They weren't worth looking at--mere tumble-down sheds in which Moslem boys were taught to say the Koran by heart.

The places where Christian missionaries once had been were all turned into stores, and even into stables for the horses of the notables.
So I returned to ben Nazir's house, and found old Sheikh Anazeh sitting outside on the step, as motionless as a tobacco-store Indian but twice as picturesque.

He still had his own rifle over his knees, and the plundered one slung over his shoulder by a strap; he never stirred abroad unarmed.
I asked him what the conference of notables was going to be about, and he told me to mind my own business.

That struck me as an excellent idea, so, not having slept at all the previous night, I went upstairs and lay on the bed.

There was no lock on the door, so I set the chair against it.
Ben Nazir was a man who had traveled a great deal, and picked up western notions of hospitality to add to the inborn eastern sense of sacredness in the relation between host and guest.