MURDERERS Rashid and I were riding down to Tripoli, and had long been looking for a certain 'kheymah' or refreshment booth beside the road, which an enterprising Christian of that town had opened in the summer months for the relief of travellers.

When at length we came in sight of it, we saw a crowd of men reposing on the ground before its awning.

We soon lost sight of them again in a ravine, and it was not till we were close upon them, climbing up the other bank, that I remarked that most of them were shackled and in charge of a small guard of Turkish soldiers.
'Criminals upon their way to the hard labour prison,' said Rashid.
'What have they done ?' I asked, as we dismounted.
He strolled across and put a question to their escort, then returned and told me: 'They are murderers.' After that information it surprised me, while we ate our luncheon, to observe their open faces, and to hear them laugh and chatter with their guards.

Already I had learnt that crime in Eastern countries is not regarded altogether as it is with us; that Orientals do not know that shrinking from contamination which marks the Englishman's behaviour towards a breaker of his country's law.

But I was unprepared for this indulgence towards a gang of murderers.