However, they looked "nasty"; and as
our stragglers were all over the place, to attract their attention, and
bring us together, asked Richard's leave to make a display of _tir_.
We put an orange on a lance-point seventy yards off. I had the first
shot. By good luck I hit, and by better luck still they did not ask for
a second, which I might have missed, so that I came off with a great
reputation. Everybody fired in turns, and all our people came up by
degrees, until we mustered enough to fight any Ghazu, if necessary. We
then formed into a single line, and rode until the remainder of the day.
We approached Palmyra thus, cheering and singing warsongs; and I am sure
that we must have looked very imposing.
The first sight of Palmyra is like a regiment of cavalry drawn up in a
single line; but as we got nearer gradually the ruins began to stand out
one by one in the sunlight, and a grander sight I have never looked upon,
so gigantic, so extensive, so desolate was this splendid city of the dead
rising out of, and half buried in, a sea of sand. One felt as if one
were wandering in some forgotten world.
The Shaykh of Palmyra and his people came out to greet us, and he
conducted us to his house. We approached it over the massive blocks
of stone that formed the pavement and by a flight of broad steps. The
interior of Palmyra resembles a group of wasps' nests on a large scale,
clinging to the gigantic walls of a ruined temple.
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