It began to rain shortly, that cold, damp rain that seems to go with a rough sea just as naturally as red liquor goes with crime. For a week or more these miserable, misguided beggars had been carried by Jaffa, from Beyrout to Port Saïd, then from Port Saïd to Beyrout, unable to land. The good captain caused a canvas to be stretched over the shivering, suffering mob that covered the deck, but the pitiless rain beat in, and the wind moaned the rigging, and the ship rolled and pitched and ploughed through the black sea, and the poor pilgrims regretted the trip, in each other's laps. All night, and till nearly noon the next day, they lay there, more dead than alive, and the hardest part of their pilgrimage was yet before them. If you have ever seen a flock of hungry gulls around a floating biscuit, you can form a very faint idea of a mob of native boatmen storming a ship at Jaffa. Of course, the ladders are filled first, then those who have missed the ladders drive bang against the ship, grab a rope or cable, or anything they can grasp, and run up the iron, slippery side of the ship as a squirrel runs up a tree. [Illustration: A STREET SCENE IN JERUSALEM.] From the top of the ship they began to fire the bags, bundles, and boxes of the deck passengers down into the broad boats that lay so thick at the ship's side as to hide the sea entirely. When they had thrown everything overboard that was loose at one end, they began on the poor pilgrims. Women, old and young, who were scarcely able to stand up, were dragged to the ladders and down to the last step. Here they were supposed to wait for the boat into which the Arabs were preparing to pitch them, for the sea was still very rough. Now the bottom step of the ladder was in the water, now six feet above, but what did these poor ignorant Russians know about gymnastics? When the rolling sea brought the row-boats up, the pilgrim usually hesitated, while the bare-armed and bare-legged boatmen yelled and wrenched her hands from the chains. By the time the Mohammedans had shaken her loose, and the victim had crossed herself, the ladder was six or eight feet from the small boat; but it was too late to stay her now, even if the Arabs had wished to, but they did not. When she made the sign of the cross, that decided them, and they let her drop. Some waiting Turks made a feeble attempt to catch the sprawling woman, but not much. Sometimes, before one could rise, another woman--for they were nearly all women--would drop upon her bent back. Sometimes, when the first boat was filled, an Arab would catch the pilgrim on his neck, and she could then be seen riding him away, as a woman rides a bicycle. From one boat to another he would leap with his helpless victim, and finally pitch her forward, over his own head, into an empty boat, where she would lie limp and helpless, and regret it some more.