BSY_FB_28-030

January Monday 30 1905

Umm idj-Djimâl 8:00 A.M. Temp 31 ° Baro. S 27.15 " L 27.51

Clear, calm. Ice at night. 1/4 in.

B & L. with Bschara, B's servant, George the dragoman and one
muleteer left this morning for a ruin some hours to the S. which B. had seen
yesterday from a nearby rise of ground. I stayed here to finish up my surveying.
After lunch I was told by a very much worried head muleteer that he had
sent the horses & mules to water at 9 o'clock in the morning and that they had not
returned at 1:30. He feared that the Druse or Arabs had swooped down on the
herd attended by only three unarmed men, and made off with them. I was
about to start out with Joseph and two Winchesters in search of them when
they hove? in sight.

It got dark & B & L. had not returned, so we had a lantern placed on the
top of a wall in the most prominent place for them to see - a light house in
the desert. They arrived in about an hour but nearly missed the town at that
for they were passing it nearly 1/2 mile to the W. when they suddenly spied
the light and changed their course.

During the night we had an unwelcome visitor to camp in the shape of
a hyeina? who prowled around the tents and frightened our watch dog
who only had nerve enough to growl quietly. A dog will not tackle a hyiena?.
The animal had probtably? been attracted to the camp by the smell of
a sheep we had slaughtered.

Ever since I arrived here I have been hoping to hear a hyeina? growl
in the ruins or to see one in the moon light, because it would make such an
attractive subject for the story of the place, and now at the very last
moment my wishes have been fullfilled?.