Off for the Holy War!
143
counter, a deformed man with a closed eye. A few minutes
later he returned, holding a tiny package of brown paper. He
kissed it with a loud smacking of the lips, and carefully put
it in his inside pocket. We drove on. . . . He was a happy
man now, humming a tune.
"Did he drink tea?" I asked Moustafa.
"No, not tea," he answered mysteriously.
I could no longer contain my curiosity. "What did he take?"
"Hasheesh."
"How often does he use it?"
"All the time. It keeps him awake, and gives him a feeling
that he is strong and has no worries."
"But isn't it habit-forming?"
Moustafa shrugged his shoulders. "He doesn't think about
it when he takes it."
Our driver had paid fifty cents for a few grams.
We drove through the night, halting at long intervals to see
that all the trucks were with us. The chanting had stopped
now. Under the moonlight the Followers of Truth slept and
snored on the grain sacks. At one o'clock we arrived in Ismailia, crossing-point of the Suez Canal. Palestine was 140
miles to the northeast, across the desert sands. Not far from
here Moses and the Israelites, fleeing from Pharaoh, camped
before crossing the Red Sea. But this was no time for such
reflections. We were all weary from the long day and its excitement, anxious to cross the canal by ferry that very night
and set up camp in the Sinai Desert. The trucks pulled up under pine groves that lined the canal. Green Shirts and Followers of Truth got off the trucks, arrayed themselves against
the trees, the banks, the truck, and relieved themselves.
The Suez Canal proved our temporary Waterloo. Through
some technicality, the customs official would not let us
through. Perhaps everything hadn't yet been tried—a little
baksheesh, bribe, for instance? Ma'alesh! No matter, it could
wait until morning. Followers of Truth spread out their
blankets—on the very places they had watered—and pulled