After some parley we were allowed to stop in the sheik's public room. There was not a dry spot about the town, but by riding up close to the door, we were able to dismount on a large log, and then jump across a mud puddle to the doorsill, and so enter the room assigned to us. It would be hard to make anyone who has not seen such houses realize what this room was like. It was about twenty feet square, with one door and no window. The lack of this latter was partly supplied by the fact that the wall of the house had tumbled in at one corner, leaving a ragged hole through which light and air entered freely. The floor was of dirt and at two levels. One half, which was used to accommodate people, was reached by a high step and was comparatively dry. In the middle of this higher floor was a smoldering wood fire, from which the smoke had colored the roof timbers a shiny black. The lower half of the floor was on a level with the ground outside or even a little lower, and was decidedly muddy. This section was for the accommodation of horses and cattle. When our party was all inside, so that we could take a census, we found that the occupants of the room for the night were to be, besides myself and my wife, the three muleteers, a cook and a Syrian maid accompanying us to the city. We were in the higher part of the room. In the other part were two horses, four mules, a goat and a calf. These were the visible animals, and anyone who has traveled under similar conditions will appreciate what is meant when I say there were myriads of other creatures which made themselves known through other senses than sight.