In the first place, the village itself was out of the question, partly because Arab houses, as a rule, do not consist of more than one room, and even when one has turned out their human inhabitants, it still remains tenanted by so many others of a carnivorous character, though minute in size, that existence becomes a burden; and partly because they are pervaded with a singular odour of burnt manure, which the natives use as fuel for the ovens in which they bake their bread, and which is too pungent to be agreeable to unsophisticated nostrils. After inhaling it for a month I have got rather to like it than otherwise. As I suspected that such might be the case, and believed that a successful was might be waged against the insects, I decided on hiring one of these rooms as a guest-chamber and a place of resort from the midday sun, in case the camp did not prove a sufficient protection. This room was nothing more nor less than a vault like a cellar, with stone walls and a stone roof, supported by cross arches, about twenty feet by thirty; and I may here mention that the precaution turned out wise, for we got fairly rid of the fleas, and the temperature in the middle of the day, when we usually repair to it for our siesta, has never been over 80°. But how to make a camp which should accommodate three ladies and four gentlemen was a serious question. We had one European tent capable of holding two people, and a smaller one for a bachelor of modest requirements in the way of standing-room, and these we supplemented with a tent which we hired of some neighbouring Bedouins, which was thirty feet long, but which, when pitched according to their fashion, was an impossible habitation for civilized beings, as it had no walls. Indeed, the whole breadth of the black camel's-hair cloth of which it was composed was only ten feet. We therefore decided on using it merely as a roof, and sent down to Haifa for a camel load of light lumber in order to make a frame on which to stretch it. We also got up two dozen cheap mats, six feet square, at twenty-five cents apiece. With these we made front and back walls and partitions for sleeping cribs. Finally our erection, on which we proudly hoisted the national flag, was thirty-four feet long, ten feet wide, seven feet high in front and five feet in rear. These mats can be triced up in front and rear in the daytime so as to allow a free circulation of air. On the roof, in order to keep the sun from heating too fiercely upon us, we spread branches of the odorous bay-tree, with which the scrubby woods of the mountain abound, and of these same branches we erected a kitchen, and stable for the horse and three donkeys which composed our establishment. The thermometer usually fell to 70° at night, and there were heavy morning dews and fogs.