‘An Arab is a bad actor, and with but a very little practice you may infallibly detect him in a lie; when directly accused of it, he is astonished at your, to him, incomprehensible sagacity, and at once gives up the game. By keeping this fact constantly in view, and at the same time endeavouring to win their confidence and respect, I have every reason to believe that the Bedawín gave us throughout a correct account of their country and its nomenclature.
‘When once an Arab has ceased to regard you with suspicion, you may surprise a piece of information out of him at any moment; and if you repeat it to him a short time afterwards, he forgets in nine cases out of ten that he has himself been your authority, and should the information be incorrect will flatly contradict you and set you right, while if it be authentic he is puzzled at your possessing a knowledge of the facts, and deems it useless to withhold from you anything further[94].’
The survey of Sinai had been completed but a few months when Palmer left England again, for a second journey of exploration. It is evident that he must have taken a more prominent part in the management of the first expedition than the precise terms of his engagement with the explorers would have led us to expect, and that he had thoroughly satisfied those responsible for it, for this second expedition was practically entrusted to him to arrange as he pleased. He was instructed in general terms to clear up, first, certain disputed points in the topography of Sinai; next, to examine the country between the Sinaitic Peninsula and the Promised Land—the ‘Desert of the Wanderings’; and, lastly, to search for inscriptions in Moab. He determined to take with him a single companion only, Mr Charles Tyrwhitt-Drake, of Trinity College, Cambridge, who had had already some experience of the East, and who proved himself in every way to be the man of men for rough journeys in unknown lands; to travel on foot, without dragoman, servant, or escort; and to take no more baggage than four camels could carry. The two friends started from Suez on December 16, 1869, and reached Jerusalem in excellent health and spirits on February 26, 1870. They had performed a feat of which anybody might well be proud. They had traversed ‘the great and terrible desert,’ the Desert of El Tih, and the Negeb, or ‘south country’ of Palestine, exactly as they had proposed to do—on foot, with no attendants except the owners of the baggage-camels. They had walked nearly 600 miles; but this fact, though it says much for their endurance, gives but little idea of the real fatigues of such a journey. The mental strain must have been far more exhausting than the physical fatigue. They were not tourists, but explorers, whose duty it was to observe carefully, to record their observations on the spot, to make plans and sketches, and to collect such information as could be extracted from the inhabitants. These various pursuits—in addition to their domestic arrangements—had to be carried on in the midst of an Arab population always suspicious, and sometimes openly hostile, who worried them from daybreak until far into the night, and against whom their only weapons were incessant watchfulness, tact, and good humour. Readers of Palmer’s narrative will not be surprised to find him hinting, not obscurely, that the only way to solve the ‘Bedouin question’ is to adopt what was called a few years afterwards, with reference to another not wholly dissimilar race, ‘the bag and baggage policy.’ This deliberate opinion, expressed by one who knew the Arabs well, and who had obtained singular influence over them, is worthy of careful attention, as, indeed, are all the chapters in the second part of _The Desert of the Exodus_, where this journey is fully described and illustrated. After reading that narrative no one can be surprised that the mission which ended so triumphantly and so fatally twelve years afterwards should have been entrusted to Palmer.