Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/134

news the Caliph bade his secretary write: “Number the men.”

Whether the secretary was careless in his writing and placed a dot over the second letter of the first word; or whether El Hâkim in his wickedness took the order which his scribe had written and himself put in the dot, Allah alone knows, but when the order reached Jerusalem the dot was there, and the order read, not “Number,” but “Mutilate the men.”^[1]

This cruelty was literally carried out, and its victims died in consequence, and were buried where they had lived. The human bones now found in the caves in the Wad er Rabâbeh are theirs.

On a hill-side in Gilead is situated the village of Remamìn, inhabited chiefly by native Christians, who account for their preservation in this remote region, during the centuries that have elapsed since the Crusaders, by the following romantic story:—

When the Crusaders first occupied Palestine there were beyond the Jordan a great many Christians dispersed in various old towns and villages, and suffering daily martyrdom from the Moslems. Many of these migrated westwards with their families and their cattle, gladly exchanging the wooded mountains, fertile pastures and rich vineyards of the country east of Jordan for the less fruitful western districts and a Christian government. Some, however, chose