The return visits which these invitations involve are often highly characteristic in their attendant circumstances, and in the varied incidents which accompany them; and, besides, they give one an opportunity of becoming minutely acquainted with the neighbourhood, and afford one an insight into the motives by which Oriental human nature is actuated. There is, for instance, a village about four miles from here, so beautifully situated among its olive groves, as seen from a distance, that I had long intended paying it a visit, and wondered why its sheik had never come to make my acquaintance. The mystery was explained one day by an old woman whose extreme poverty had induced me to employ her as a water-carrier. On asking how she had become so destitute, she said that she was a widow, and that her only son and support had been waylaid and murdered some months previously by some of the young men of the village in question. All her efforts to obtain justice had been unavailing, and since then the two villages had not been on visiting terms. As none of the inhabitants of Dalieh would accompany me, I found my own way one day to the village, to try and discover the rights of the story. I was received with great politeness by a tall, gentlemanlike man, whom I supposed to be the sheik, but who turned out to be the very individual who had been accused of the murder. Soon the sheik and a number of village notables arrived, and, seated around the neatly-matted guest-chamber, we exchanged compliments and discussed the topics of the day. These all turn upon the payment of the new government taxes; and the price of wheat this year has been so low that the unhappy peasantry are driven to their wits' end, and finally to usurious money-lenders, to obtain the necessary cash. In this emergency I am appealed to in every direction for assistance, and I was well aware that our interview on this occasion would not terminate without the usual demand. When it came, I saw my chance for alluding to the delicate subject of the murder, and the objections I entertained to lending money to people who were in the habit of murdering their neighbours. They admitted the murder, which had been attended with robbery, but my host denied that he had been in any way implicated, though he had unjustly suffered several months' imprisonment on suspicion, and had only been finally released on payment of a heavy sum as backsheesh. It seems that the evidence as to who the culprit really was rested on the dying deposition of the victim, who had been attacked by four men, all of whom he named on his deathbed. On the other hand, my host had succeeded in proving an alibi. The real culprit had, he said, escaped, and had never ventured back to the village.