The enslavement of the Jerusalem pilgrim seems to have been comparatively rare before the end of the sixteenth century; yet two of the most striking narratives belong to the year 1565. The first adventure, however, happened during an excursion to Jordan without escort, a risk that none dreamt of running later. A German, named Fürer, set out in February, with a friend, a eunuch-interpreter, and a monk-guide. Sitting down to a meal on the way back, four Arabs appeared, whom they treated as guests; yet, the meal over, the Arabs enquired whether their hosts had any money or garments worth stealing. Doubting their negatives, they undressed them, and beneath the monkish outer-garment which each one was wearing discovered on the two travellers underclothing which suggested riches. The Arabs forthwith led all four away into the desert to sell them at Medina, but were induced before long to despatch the monk with two of themselves to the nearest monastery, that of S. Saba, some hours' journey from Jerusalem, for ransom. The remaining three Franks, unarmed, chose their time to attack the two armed Arabs, and after a desperate fight and a fearful journey, wounded, parched, and famished, Fürer climbed up a rope-ladder into the monastery through one of the back-windows, while the two other Arabs were being kept waiting in the front. The other tale concerns sixty-two pilgrims who sailed from Jaffa in the August of that same year.[149] On October 16 they were shipwrecked off the coast of Asia Minor, one being drowned. On landing six were killed, the rest taken prisoners, a proportion of whom go to Rhodes. These are urged to apostatise—in vain. They offer ransoms; Frau Johanna of Antwerp three hundred ducats [£540], Pastor Peter Villingen three hundred and twelve kronen [which may mean anything from £200 to £800; probably the former]: the total came to three thousand, two hundred and sixty kronen. This does not seem enough to their owners; the Venetian and some sailors get free somehow; the others are sent to the galleys. During 1566 Frau Johanna and six others die. By May 1, 1568, seven more are dead; two have been redeemed for six hundred kronen; two others for four hundred and eighty kronen. Soon after, an Italian was ransomed by the Venetian "bailo." This is all that is known of the sixty-two. [Illustration: A SOUVENIR]