These dances lasted for hours, and as they progressed the men gradually worked themselves up into a frenzy. I never failed to wonder at these people, who, without the aid of alcohol, could reproduce the various stages of intoxication. As I lay by and watched the moon riding serenely above these frantic men and their twisting black shadows, I reflected that they were just in the condition when one word from a holy man would suffice to send them off to wholesale murder and rapine. It was my good fortune soon to be released from the noise and dirt of the mosque. I had had experience with corruptible Turkish officers; and one day, when barrack conditions became unendurable, I went to the officer commanding our division--an old Arab from Latakieh who had been called from retirement at the time of the mobilization. He lived in a little tent near the mosque, where I found him squatting on the floor, nodding drowsily over his comfortable paunch. As he was an officer of the old régime, I entered boldly, squatted beside him and told him my troubles. The answer came with an enormous shrug of the shoulders. "You are serving the Sultan. Hardship should be sweet!" "I should be more fit to serve him if I got more sleep and rest." He waved a fat hand about the tent. "Look at me! Here I am, an officer of rank and"--shooting a knowing look at me--"I have not even a nice blanket." "A crime! A crime!" I interrupted. "To think of it, when I, a humble soldier, have dozens of them at home! I should be honored if you would allow me--" My voice trailed off suggestively. "How could you get one?" he asked. "Oh, I have friends here in Saffêd but I _must_ be able to sleep in a nice place." "Of course; certainly. What would you suggest?" "That hotel kept by the Jewish widow might do," I replied. More amenities were exchanged, the upshot of which was that my four friends and I were given permission to sleep at the inn--a humble place, but infinitely better than the mosque. It was all perfectly simple. [ILLUSTRATION: SOLDIERS' TENTS IN SAMARIA] CHAPTER III THE GERMAN PROPAGANDA So passed the days of our training, swiftly, monotonously, until the fateful December morning when the news came like a thunderbolt that Turkey was about to join hands with Germany. We had had reports of the war--of a kind. Copies of telegrams from Constantinople, printed in Arabic, were circulated among us, giving accounts of endless German victories. These, however, we had laughed at as fabrications of a Prussophile press agency, and in our skepticism we had failed to give the Teutons credit for the successes they had actually won. To us, born and bred in the East as we were, the success of German propaganda in the Turkish Empire could not come as an overwhelming surprise; but its fullness amazed us. It may be of timely interest to say a few words here regarding this propaganda as I have seen it in Palestine, spreading under strong and efficient organization for twenty years.