noon
`` You should have let me rub in that brandy , '' I said . `` You ca n't conceive how efficaciously I would have done it . '' But he made me no answer . At noon we met a caravan of pilgrims coming up from Jordan . There might be some three or four hundred , but the number seemed to be treble that , from the loose and straggling line in which they journeyed . It was a very singular sight , as they moved slowly along the narrow path through the sand , coming out of a defile among the hills , which was perhaps a quarter of a mile in front of us , passing us as we stood still by the wayside , and then winding again out of sight on the track over which we had come . Some rode on camels , -- a whole family , in many cases , being perched on the same animal .