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The Aspect of the Mountains.-Arab Graves.-The Pacha and the Bedouins.-The Value of Water.-Perplexing Inscriptions. -Habits of the Arabs.-Ethics of the Desert.-Breach of the Marriage Vow.-Arrival at the Convent.-An Excess of Welcome.-Greece and America.-Amor Patriæ.

In the morning Paul was well, but I recommended a little starvation to make all sure; this, however, by no means agreed with his opinionor his appetite; for, as he said, a man who rode a dromedary all day must eat or die. Late in the afternoon we passed a hill of stones, which Burckhardt calls the tomb of a saint; but, according to Toualeb's account, and he spoke of it as a thing within his own knowledge, it was the tomb of an entirely different personage, namely, a woman who was surprised by her kindred with a paramour, and killed and buried on the spot; on a little eminence above, a few stones marked the place where a slave had been stationed to give the guilty pair a timely notice of approaching danger, but had neglected his important trust.

Our road now lay between wild and rugged mountains, and the valley itself was stony, broken, and gullied by the washing of the winter torrents; and a few straggling thorn-bushes were all that grew in that region of desolation. I had remarked for some time, and every moment im

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ASPECT OF THE MOUNTAINS.

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pressed it more and more forcibly upon my mind, that every thing around me scemed old and in decay the valley was barren and devastated by torrents; the rocks were rent; the mountains cracked, broken, and crumbling into thousands of pieces; and we encamped at night between rocks which seemed to have been torn asunder by some violent convulsion, where the stones had washed down into the valley, and the drifted sand almost choked the passage. It had been excessively hot during the day, and at night the wind was whistling around my tent as in mid-winter.

Early in the morning we were again in motion, our route lying nearly all day in the same narrow valley, bounded by the same lofty mountains. At every step the scene became more solemn and impressive; all was still around us; and not a sound broke the universal silence, except the soft tread of our camels, and now and then the voice of one of us-but there was little encouragement to garrulity. The mountains became more and more striking, venerable, and interesting. Not a shrub or blade of grass grew on their naked sides, deformed with gaps and fissures; and they looked as if by a slight jar or shake they would crumble into millions of picces. It is impossible to describe correctly the singularly interesting appearance of these mountains. Age, hoary and venerable, is the predominant character. They looked as if their great Creator had made them higher than they are, and their summits, worn and weakened by the action of the elements for thou

sands of years, had cracked and fallen. My days in the desert did not pass as quickly as I hurry through them here. They wore away, not slowly alone, but sometimes heavily; and, to help them in their progress, I sometimes descended to very commonplace amusements. On one occasion, I remember, meeting a party of friendly Bedouins, and sitting down with them to pipes and coffee, I noticed a fine lad of nineteen or twenty, about the size of one of my party, and pitted mine against him for a wrestling-match. The old Bedouins took the precaution to remove their knives and swords, and it was well they did, for the two lads throttled each other like young furies; and when mine received a pretty severe prostration on the sand, he first attempted to regain his sword, and, failing in that, sprang again upon his adversary with such ferocity that I was glad to have the young devils taken apart, and still more glad to know that they were going to travel different roads.

Several times we passed the rude buryinggrounds of the Bedouins, standing alone in the waste of sand, a few stones thrown together in a heap marking the spot where an Arab's bones reposed; but the wanderer of the desert looks forward to his final rest in this wild burying-place of his tribe, with the same feeling that animates the English peasant towards the churchyard of his native village, or the noble peer towards the honoured tomb of his ancestors.

About noon we came to an irregular stone fence,

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