and the ascending smoke gave them an interval.

How it reminded me of Martin's picture of Hades, where the Evil One is holding council with his ministers, with its chandelier of stars, and even the rounded mountain, like a globe rising in the distance, nothing wanting but the archfiend himself, and his throne upon its summit. In like manner these hills were dotted, bivouacked and lighted, as Titus went on his destroying way; or when the cedars of Lebanon were wearily dragged through the gorges, to their resting place in the Temple.

And so the twilight deepened into night. Arabs sat. and sang, and smoked, and looked unearthly in the fire-light, or lay down to sleep in the sand, in the same turban, sack and trousers in which they had worked. No rain-clouds were there to make them seek for shelter, no chilly air to make them shrink, and upon them the stars looked down with their peace and good will to men.

Every few minutes, as we went on our winding way, my official would call out to the workers, or they to him, when he stood, puzzled by the tortuous road they had half obliterated. It being night, of course I had to keep very near my guide, or lose sight of him entirely, but as I felt the fatigue and pain approaching the last point of endurance, I would often draw in the lines, for the luxury of having the horse, walk a little; but the burnoose with its black and dirty white stripes, would soon disappear, and I had to hurry on again to keep it in sight, and this too down declivities which would be dangerous in the broadest daylight. This continued until we had reached and passed the last Arab encampment, if they may be said to have encamped who had for a tent the entire firmament festooned with

stars..

As we went on in the darkness, the boy was riding with the official, and they were chattering their Arabic together. I was thinking with keen regret of my loss in never having been taught Arabic, and again, for the fiftieth time, I drew in the lines. What a relief it was to have the adamant beneath me on a walk!

The burnoose disappeared at once; soon the clattering of the hoofs too was lost in the distance, but will and vitality had come to words, and would not obey each other. I tried to start the horse, but the jar was too much for me. The case was growing desperate; to be lost in that huge nest of verdureless mountains was to court death itself. I finally started again, down, down, down, holding my knees tightly to the horse's side, leaning back in the saddle, and recklessly urging him on, almost indifferent whether he fell or not, and leaving him to find the way by his own instinct.

Suddenly we came square up to a huge rock, and there was no pathway. For a moment I glanced about seeking the track, but I found none. I called, but there was no answer, called again and louder, but still there was no sound. I put my hands to my mouth, and shouted until the mountains of Jordan echoed back the cry, but their echoes were the only response, and silence as well as darkness was upon the face of the deep. I was alone and lost, without guide and without compass, in that maze of granite, which in the sombre night seemed to be piled up to the stars. These were the mountains which echoed the shouts as Goliah fell, and between them was Ajalon. There was one consolation; I could sit still, and for a time I recklessly enjoyed the luxury.

With returning vitality, I once more began to look about for the trail, when I was somewhat surprised to hear a tinkling and pattering sound up the mountain. It came nearer; I drew back into the shadow of the rock, and awaited with some curiosity, some indifference, the advent of man or beast, spirit or goblin. Three figures on horseback soon appeared in the semi-darkness. They came down the mountain and passed on. What they were, robbers, assassins, or sutlers from the Sultan's army of laborers, I could not know, and did not wait to guess, but rode after them. I had lost the points of the compass, and could not tell even in what direction the strangers were going. Hastening forward, I soon came in sight of them again, and as soon

as I was within speaking distance, hailed them, calling out, "Jaffa? Jaffa?" pointing with my arm in the direction that they were going. The answer, somewhat to my surprise, came in Italian; but, satisfied with the "yes" as to the direction, I drew back, keeping them just within sight, or rather within hearing, and went on, determined to follow them and take the consequences. Fortunately they went slowly-just the gait of my own Bucephalus and we slowly moved along and down the rough pathway, which would be "trying enough to American horses, to say nothing of American nerves."

The hours passed on as my three strange guides led the way, I too much fatigued to care what manner of men they were, or to think of danger; and so we went on, until the base of the mountain came dimly into view, and the huge plain lay before me which "flowed with milk and honey" in the olden time, now without verdure or grass blades. stretching out to the sea, and from the desert to Lebanon. Far away on the plain a twinkling little light shone, at times hardly visible, but increasing in size as we descended and approached the plain. Finally, leaving our rough and dangerous pathway, which had seemed endless- -a path way of boulders washed out by torrents and chiselled by hoofs-we found ourselves on the level prairie. I let the lines fall, and tried to support with my hands and arms part of the dead weight upon the saddle.

As we approached the light on the plain, objects became more visible. There was a sort of khan, or shed made of boughs, where wanderers gathered together for protection, or robbers for rest and drink. There lay a camel with a load on its patient back, there a horse or a few goats, while a murmur of voices came from the turbaned company under the shed of boughs. My three strange guides dismounted and went in; I was too far off to individualize them, but kept my eye upon their beasts, so that I might start again when they did. Then dismounting, and in some pain, I stood by the horse, leaning a weary head upon the saddle, dreading the reappearance of

my impromptu guides and the necessity of mounting again, though a good deal of indifference to all things was beginning to creep over me. In this attitude, clinging to the luxury of rest, I remained for some time, when what was my surprise to see my official of the burnoose and my donkey boy come out from under the boughs, and begin holding another interesting conversation with me in Arabic. It was adding insult to injury, and I shrugged my shoulders at the harangue, and longed for a dragoman. My friends had evidently gone on to secure their coffee and wait for me at the khan.

Again we mounted, I with pain and difficulty enough, and again we started over the seemingly boundless plain.

The jog trot of the brute I rode had now become frightful to my overworked limbs and body, and before we had gone a hundred yards, I drew in the lines, unable to continue the pace. The donkey by rushed up, making exclamations and grimaces, and pointing to the receding officer. Again he uttered his Arabic cries and pointed ahead, pr bably discoursing of the horrors of being lost in the night; but his words lent no light t my mind, and I said mentally, "Alas! that unknown tongue! take any shape but that, and I will speak to thee." Then, with a motion and manner he could not misunderstand, I ordered him behind me. Silently and solemnly he followed in my wake, and there before me was the dissolving view of the official and his horse, literally my bete noir. I never saw him again, and probably never shall until that last and final gathering which, as some dream, will take place in the Holy Land.

Well, the bucksheesh set apart for his pocket remained in my own, and our footprints are on different routes; but O the intense sigh of relief to get rid of that "old man of the mountain," that incubus, that burden which was sinking me into the slough of despond! Steamers! I would have missed fifty of them sooner than have continued that trot. A feeling of relief, of profound peace, came to my heart and limbs-a feeling almost of joy, certainly of perfect indifference to the danger of the act. Indeed, it was almost

as ludicrous as dangerous, alone with a little Arab boy in the middle of the night, in the midst of the plains of Syria, and an easy prey to even a robber boy at that moment. The situation, however, suddenly became a little more interesting and exciting, for on looking around, after proceeding calmly for half an hour, I found that the little Arab had bowed his head upon the mane of the mule, curled his legs up behind him on its haunches, and was fast asleep, while I suddenly became aware that I did not know if we were going towards the pole or Bagdad, Jerusalem or the sea.

I punched the boy with the point of an olive-wood cane; it was useless. Dismounting, I led the horse and pinched the bare leg of the boy, until he sat up and opened his weary eyes, looking somewhat surprised at being disturbed. I mounted again, and was soon lost in reverie about the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant, and about the route on which we were, for there Richard and Titus had passed, as well as our Saviour and his disciples, in their journeyings to Joppa. On looking around I found the little fellow asleep again. The punching would not arouse, so I had to dismount and pinch him into wakefulness. He sat up and looked at the trackless way, and then at me, with such a yankee "all right" expression on his face, that I could but laugh, mount, and go on. The fatigue also which had been relieved by the change of gait began to tell upon me again, but the situation was unique and interesting, and I was soon off into the realms of reverie again.

Suddenly my attention was drawn by a loud heavy thud. The boy in his sleep had rolled off and fallen to the ground. He picked himself up unharmed. We arranged the baggage and went on, but he was soon asleep again, and to make things worse I found that my horse would not lead. I drew him in, and let the donkey with his load of somnolence go on before, I following without attempting to awaken the lad.

On

we went into the night, into the night shadows-through Syria with a donkey for a guide, and, as Novalis says, "Alone

on the wide bosom of the all." The plain spread out boundless, with darkness for its horizon, and boundless lay the sparkling firmament, with no horizon but infinity. It seemed to be an age since I had left Jerusalem; home seemed further away than the stars, and they in that clear atmosphere were so far off that they appeared to have no fellowship in the scene. My fatigue too in its intensity, but now without pain, was coming back again. The last hour-of strength to sit upright-was approaching. My nerves were unstrung and relaxed, and I felt as if I were a waif of creation, alone in a tenantless world. Everything had gone from me-cities, peoples, individuals; life's loves and hates, hopes and fears, had become unsubstantial, non-existent, or seemed as far away as if I were a mere planet in my orbit, circling and circling but never to reach them.

Alone, yet undisturbed by fear, indifferent to the situation, and with no feeling of loneliness, but the waste of desolation, the unstrung nerves, the intense fatigue, and perhaps the moral atmosphere of the plain, which had borne earth's mighty ones, Heaven's Holy One, all pressed upon my soul, until I became like a little one strayed from its home. Tears came to my eyes, at first gently, then in an unrestrained flood, as they would to those of a child who had lost its mother, and for a time I was but little more than that. The childish burst passed off, but not the fatigue. To that began to be added a spinal pain, and I found it difficult to sit upright. Every few minutes my eyes would involuntarily close, and as I was falling, I recovered myself with a start. It seemed as if I could feel the fatigue pass through my limbs and arms, and steal off their vitality. We rode still on, and weariness grew deeper and deeper; on, and it made itself felt in each separate muscle and bone; on, and I felt that the end was approaching. It came at last, an irresistible flood of unutterable weariness. I checked the animals, which willingly stopped at the word, and slipped or fell from the saddle to the earth, full length, between the legs of the brutes, and as far

as I can remember, the next moment was in a deep dreamless sleep, as indifferent to time, steamships, and the impelling necessity, as a bride to the doll of her

childhood.

There I lay with gold at the mercy of any wandering vagabond, with the desolate plain of Sharon stretching out to the dim horizon, with loneliness like a garment shrouding me, and the mysterious stars in the canopy of ether looking on. If a little boy with a pop-gun had awakened me with the demand, "your money or your life," I should have mentally said, without making the effort to open my eyes, "take it if you will, but don't make me lift my arm to give it." However, no one came, and my eyes finally opened as suddenly as they had closed, and I started up from my vast prairie bed, fully awake and somewhat refreshed. The animals stood as if formed of stone, perfectly motionless. They too had probably been sleeping, while young Somnus lay on the back of his mule, "with his martial cloak around him," unconscious of all save his dreams. I sprang up and mounted, fearful that daylight might come too soon, while my friend, dragoman, companion and guide, in other words, the little mule, went on before into the starlit void, and I meekly followed his leading. The elasticity gained by my sand-bed nap, however, was of short duration, the fatigue being too deeply seated to be so soon ended. It was now nerve and will against exhausted muscle. To this was added a pain in the spine, but no more sleepiness. And this was the plain our Saviour trod, over which the Philistines wandered, across which Titus led his warriors, and where Saladin beat the Christian hosts, but my need and the Jaffa goal were the veil that kept all these things from thought. Awakened from a reverie by a sharper spinal twinge, I looked up. The stars had wandered from their course. They had been my compass, and now either they or I were "off the track." Having more faith in their habits than in my own movements, I rode up and punched the little Arab again with my stick, but it was useless. I had to dismount and

pinch him into wakefulness. Starting up, he opened his eyes and looked about him utterly bewildered and lost. He looked from side to side, but made no sign; his bright little face was utterly blank. The situation was ludicrously bewildering. The night was wearing rapidly away, and the idea of being ignorant as to whether we were going towards Bagdad or the Caspian, Jaffa or the Pole, of losing the race just as it seemed within my grasp, was mortifying. In this dilemma, the earth before us where to choose, a curious incident occurred. A voice came from the darkness, where no person or thing could be seen. I was too much fatigued to be startled. The voice, however, seemed to be human, neither from heaven nor of hades; but it came in good plain Arabic apparently, for the boy answered it, and it came again in the darkness. Was it the one chance of a million? If so, that chance was ours. A vagabond drifting over the plain, a shepherd sleeping on the earth, a peasant under a thatch,—what you will, I shall never know whence came that voice, so useful yet so startling. The boy turned his mule in another direction, and we went on our way. If the voice had not come at our extreme need, we might have brought up at the Black Sea, or like the German with the cork leg, even now been walking anatomies on the Steppes of Russia.

Well, we went on wearily in the new direction. In a few minutes the boy had curled himself up and was asleep again, and I followed on after my mule-guide. The way seemed strange and unfamiliar, still I had reached the "centre of indifference," and rode on without further troubling myself.

At last the day broke, and that long, weary night was over. Jaffa was visible on the horizon, in the clear atmosphere, though still some thirteen miles away. However, the wilds were passed, and a track was visible. Here came a Turk on a donkey, there an Arab on a camel; again some goats seeking a meal in the dry stubble, then a line of camels, the head of one tied by a rope to the tail of the next. In about an hour after day