Dr. Jacob Norris is senior lecturer in Middle Eastern history at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. This essay is an extract from his current book project which reconstructs the life of one man from Bethlehem, Jubrail Dabdoub (1860–1931). Jubrail was part of the first generation of merchants in the town to travel the world in the 1870s and 1880s. The book is a work of creative history that mixes detailed empirical research with fictional styles of writing borrowed from genres such as magical realism and the Palestinian khurafiyya to capture the spirit of confusion, wonder, and encounter that marked this period of Bethlehem’s history.