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our provisions and bedding were unpack-| ing. Then came supper, with actual hunger for a condiment. For a bed a blanket was spread upon the sand, with a stone for a pillow, and like Jacob I lay down to sleep.

All was still and hushed as we rested under the canopy of stars, but the day's ride of thirteen hours had more than fatigued me. It had overstrained the nervous system, and I lay gazing at the star-dance in the heavens hour after hour, the blanket-covered stone pillow having little effect in lulling one to repose. I was, therefore, rather startled than awakened when the dragoman approached, an hour after midnight, and cried, "To horse! to horse!" How I longed for a sleeping car in which to finish the tour of Syria! but I resigned myself to the inevitable, and mounted, and did not "set up that stone for a pillar," nor "pour oil upon it," but cared not with what ignominy the next traveller would salute it.

Again we started, leaving our citadel companions scattered about in the sand, apparently asleep and unconscious of our movements, and certainly looking not very

formidable in case of an attack. It was not very dark; in that clear eastern atmosphere the stars give double the light they do with us. We passed through the miserable village. As we left the place, our way led under the arches of an old wall of massive stone masonry. The dragoman noticed my look as I turned to examine the work, and said: That, sir, is the wall that-that-Joshua-rams'horns-blew down-and-"evidently not well up in his Bible history. Observing the smile on my face, he exclaimed, "Ah, but it has been repaired since!" Probably," said I to my veracious companion, laughing outright, and so we left the scene of that strange miracle.

Two, three, four, five,-the night hours passed on as we trotted solemnly enough back into the wilderness. This part of the desert was not so wild as that through which our route of the morning led, yet it was still dangerous enough in the darkness for ordinary nerves, and looked more weirdly picturesque in the starlight than it had in the glaring sunlight.

On the way we met some wandering Bedouins, who were saucy enough until

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Olives, and the night shadows vanished as the day broke on jaded steeds and jaded riders. The sun rose to make the

refreshing night air hot again, and it

was high in

the heavens as we rounded the base of Olivet. and came in view of the sorry mass of buildings which stands over the site of old Jerusalem,that city which has so often drunk the cup of bitterness to the very dregs.

We dismissed our soldierguard with thanks and bucksheeshcrossed the valley of Jehoshaphat,entered St. Ste

JERUSALEM FROM OLIVET.

grass blade-all burned up in the long, hot, rainless Syrian summer.

phen's gate, and, though with but little dure, not a vestige of freshness, not a elasticity or strength remaining, I began preparing for the other half of my doubtful undertaking. The Jordan and Dead Sea water were duly "canned," and olivewood trifles, beads and gold ornaments, were secured as souvenirs, and I was ready.

My unconsciousness of fatigue was unfortunately of but short duration. I soon found out that the movement of our horses was as different as if the gait of one had been made by a carpenter, and that of the other by Apollo. The officer's horse had a delightful movement, half amble, half pace; mine was easy enough on a walk, a fast trot, or a run, but the

by my companion was—well, like a ride in a city railroad car off the track, or an excursion on a corduroy road in a cordwood wagon.

All this, however, was soon forgotten, as I became absorbed in the curious scenes which broke upon our view. It was rumored at Jerusalem that Napoleon and Eugenie were to return the Sultan's visit to the Exposition, and that at the same time they would visit the Holy Sepulchre. So Abdul Assiz, in anticipation of their coming, was having a car

An officer of the Turkish government was about to ride the rest of that day and all night with dispatches for the very steamer I was trying to reach, and as both consul and dragoman said I was fortu-jog-trot which would enable me to keep nate in having the opportunity of accompanying him, I did not demur. I should, however, have obtained another dragoman, (the one who went to the Dead Sea of course declined to go,) who could speak English or French, and be under my own control, a blunder which eventually I had cause to regret. The little Arab boy also, who had been with us to the Jordan, was to go for the purpose of bringing back my horse, the father of the poor fellow having apparently neither care nor thought for his nerves nor his vertebræ. The boy, in his youthful reck-riage road built from Jerusalem down to lessness, was willing enough; and after eating a hearty meal, a fresh horse and mule were prepared, my carpet bags were slung on each side of the latter, and the boy was mounted above them. I bade the consul and host good-by, and joined the officer, who was radiant in turban and burnoose, at the Jaffa gate, under the shadow of the Tower of David, and started on the last long heat of my doubtful race.

I was probably more fatigued than I was aware, as the excitement of collecting souvenirs and getting away made me forget for a time that I had been nineteen hours on horseback, with but little rest, and no sleep at all. The day was not so hot as the previous one. The sun was sinking in the west, towards my far away home, and I bade farewell to the desolate city with neither affection nor regret.

Over the level, dusty road, under the walls of the Greek and Armenian convents, we went on our way, and I felt confident of success. The desolation was painful to behold, not a particle of ver

the plain. A carriage road in Syria, and built by its own inhabitants too! Long centuries have passed without even the attempt at such a thing. If it be done, shades of departed camels must move in their graves at the desecration of their ways, and their meek-eyed posterity look with astonishment at the "deformed transformed" pathway which in its normal state was hardly fit for the highway of a mountain goat. But the Emperor will never see that road; fate's iron hand is upon him, and his quen too has gone to the East, and come again without murmuring her orisons at Calvary, or even seeing the land which is mourning under the desolation of its curse.

To build this road, and with a sublime indifference to the question whether his subjects were machines or human beings, the Sultan had commanded that each inhabitant should pay into the treasury a certain number of piastres, or work for five days on the highway; and at the time we were passing, the men of Bethlehem were "in the breach." We soon began to descend by the rugged bridle

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path, full of boulders and cobble stones, and came upon the first party of Bethlehemites at their labor. To the eye accustomed to the Hibernian gang, building a roadway in America, this party was curiously interesting, picturesque and unique. The many-colored turbans, interspersed with the Mecca green, the betasselled fez, the long full beards, the sashes and flowing trowsers, Arabs, Jews, Bedouins, youth, manhood, age, all blended in one picturesque view. The men were mostly stern and indifferent, doing their liege lord's will, not very heartily, and from their point of view, probably, doing as necessary a piece of work as we should think the carpeting of Broadway would be.

were telling upon me fearfully; and without feeling like absolutely breaking down at the moment, I knew that it would be impossible to continue our pace all the long night. But what should I do? My burnoosed friend would not be checked; he must go on with his documents, and if I did stop him I could not explain. Indeed, I must go on too, if I would catch the steamer; and to give it up then and there, and turn back amongst all the vassals of the Sultan, "black spirits and white, blue spirits and gray, was not to be thought of, and even if I did reach the gates of Jerusalem again, they would be closed. Another trouble came with the darkness. I had to keep up with this fellow or lose sight of him, and this involved the danger of being lost on one hand, or a dislocation from the horse's angular trot on the other. However, my sufferings were again for a time lost sight of in the strange scenes which presented themselves.

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As the twilight approached and the day ended, the unique laborers ceased work, and were scattered about, gathering sticks, straw, stubble, brushwood, anything that would burn, and as the shadows fell, dotted about like stars or comets on the distant hills, shone out the little fires, where Bedouins, Arabs or Jews were baking their bits of dough, or heating their coffee, while near by as we rode on, the fires blazed up, and the Arab song came from behind the bushes, in tones so weird, so overstrained, high

We struck the first finished section of the new road, extending about a hundred yards, and some forty feet wide, walled up on the side of the ravine, and covered with fresh earth. It was of the "joy forever" order of sensations, to get on that touch of civilization, and we trotted gayly over the soft level. I wonder what it will be under the watery tempests of a Palestine winter! At the end it was confusion worse confounded, for the old bridle path had been broken up into a chaos. My official had to call out several times to the Arab workmen for guidance, and cross and recross several times before he could descend, and then it seemed strange that a horse could keep his footing or his balance at such an angle; indeed in some places our horses stumbled and slid down rather than walked. On-keyed and monotonous, that it was cuward and downward again we went, over the slippery granite and loose boulders, until we came upon a mass of the turbaned laborers, all away from their work, and quarrelling, playing or disputing, I coull not guess which, as we hastened by, and on to the next group of the Sultan's human machines, and the next bit of finished road.

All this was interesting and exciting, but time hurried by as well as we. The sun sank; twilight followed in his wake, and I felt then the sun of my endurance was also sinking into a twilight that boded a starless night of exhaustion. The previous work, and the present gait

riously in keeping with the strange scene. It was music which perhaps made the scene more classic and antique, but which at home would have put a third rate church choir into hysterics, with its nasal, twanging monotony. The scene itself was exciting, almost bewildering in its strangeness. At the roadside, as we journeyed along, the fires blazed and the smoke curled up towards the stars, from pipes as well as from the hearth-stones of sand; and dotted about in the mountains above and below, and right and left, half hidden in the gloom, the fires shone out, and now and then the stars shone too, where the sparks

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