He has been in Syria and Jerusalem,
through the Desert, and at Sebastopol; and says he means to get Ticknor
to publish his travels, and the story of his whole adventurous life, on
his return home. A free-spoken, confiding, hardy, religious, unpolished,
simple, yet world-experienced man; very talkative, and boring me with
longer visits than I like. He has brought home, among other curiosities,
"a lady's arm," as he calls it, two thousand years old,--a piece of a
mummy, of course; also some coins, one of which, a gold coin of
Vespasian, he showed me, and said he bought it of an Arab of the desert.
The Bedouins possess a good many of these coins, handed down immemorially
from father to son, and never sell them unless compelled by want. He had
likewise a Hebrew manuscript of the Book of Ruth, on a parchment roll,
which was put into his care to be given to Lord Haddo.
He was at Sebastopol during the siege, and nearly got his head knocked
off by a cannon-ball. His strangest statement is one in reference to
Lord Raglan. He says that an English officer told him that his Lordship
shut himself up, desiring not to be disturbed, as he needed sleep. When
fifteen hours had gone by, his attendants thought it time to break open
the door; and Lord Raglan was found dead, with a bottle of strychnine by
the bedside. The affair, so far as the circumstances indicated suicide,
was hushed up, and his death represented as a natural one.
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