capade of our runaway camels, bringing about the catastrophe which one of them had since expiated with his life, they had mingled together in horrible confusion, contrary to all the rules of art, so many discordant ingredients, that a great portion of my larder was spoiled; and, among other things, salt, almost as necessary to man as bread, had completely lost its savour. But the Bedouins, habituated to wanting almost everything, knew where to find all that their barren country could give; and one of them leaving the tents for a few moments, returned with a small quantity that he had picked up for immediate use, being a cake or incrustation about as large as the head of a barrel; and I afterward saw regular strata of it, and in large quantities, in the sides of the mountains.

CHAPTER VII.

The Road to Gaza.-Unknown Ruins.-A Misadventure.-Pastoral Bed ouins. A Flower of the Wilderness.-The Ravages of War.-Testimony of an Eyewitness.

WE started at six o'clock the next day, the morning rather cool, though clear and bracing; we were again among the mountains, and at about eleven a track scarcely distinguishable to my eye turned off to Gaza. To a traveller from such a country as ours, few of the little every-day wonders he is constantly noticing strike him more forcibly than the character of the great public roads in the East. He makes allowance for the natural wildness of the country, the impossibility of using wheel-carriages on the mountains, or horses in the desert as beasts of burden, but still he is surprised and disappointed. Here, for instance, was a road leading to the ancient city of Gaza, a regular caravan route for four thousand years, and yet so perfect in the wildness of nature, so undistinguishable in its appearance from other portions of the wilderness around, that a stranger would have passed the little opening in the rocks probably without noticing it, and certainly without imagining that the wild track, of which it formed the entrance, would conduct him to the birthplace and ancient capital of David, and the holy city of Jerusalem. The solitary trail of the Indian over our prairies and forests is more perfectly marked as a road than either of the great routes to Gaza or Jerusalem and yet, near the spot where these two roads diverge are the ruins of an ancient city.

Little, if anything, has been known in modern days con

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cerning the existence and distinguishing features of this road; and it is completely a terra incognita to modern travellers. All the knowledge possessed of it is that derived from the records of ancient history; and from these we learn that in the time of David and Solomon, and the later days of the Roman empire, a great public road existed from Jerusalem to Akaba, the ancient Eloth or Ezion-geber; that several cities existed upon it between these terminating points, and that their ruins should still be visible. Believing that I am the first traveller who has ever seen those ruins, none can regret more than myself my inability to add to the scanty stock of knowledge already in possession of geographers. If my health had permitted, I might have investigated and explored, noted observations, and treasured up facts and circumstances, to place them in the hands of wiser men for their conclusions; but I was not equal to the task. The ruins which I saw were a confused and shapeless mass, and I rode among them without dismounting; there were no columns, no blocks of marble, or large stones which indicated any architectural greatness, and the appearance of the ruins would answer the historical description of a third or fourth rate city.

About three hours farther on, and half a mile from our path, on the right, was a quadrangular arch with a dome ; and near it was a low stone building, also arched, which 1 might have been a small temple. The Bedouins, as usual, referred it to the times of the Christians. For about a mile, in different places on each side of us, were mounds of crumbling ruins; and directly on the caravan-track we came to a little elevation, where were two remarkable wells, of the very best Roman workmanship, about fifty feet deep, lined with large hard stones, as firm and perfect as on the day in which they were laid. The uppermost layer, round the top of the well, which was on a level with the pavement, was of marble, and had many grooves cut in it, apparently

worn by the long-continued use of ropes in drawing water. Around each of the wells were circular ranges of columns, which, when the city existed, and the inhabitants came there to drink, might and probably did support a roof similar to those now seen over the fountains in Constantinople. No remains of such roof, however, are existing; and the columns are broken, several of them standing not more than three or four feet high, and the tops scooped out to serve as troughs for thirsty camels. On the other side, a little in the rear of the wells, is a hill overlooking the scattered ruins below, which may, some hundred years ago, have been the Acropolis of the city. A strong wall seems to have extended around the whole summit level of the hill. I remember that I rode up to the summit, winding around the hill, and leaped my horse over the broken wall; but there was nothing to reward me for the exertion of the undertaking. The enclosure formed by the wall was filled with ruins, but I could give form or feature to none of them; here, too, I rode among them without dismounting; and from here I could see the whole extent of the ruins below. As in the ruined city I had just passed, there was not a solitary inhabitant, and not a living being was to be seen but my companions watering their camels at the ancient wells. This, no doubt, was another of the Roman cities; and although it was probably never celebrated for architectural or monumental beauty, it must have contained a large population.

We were now coming into another country, and leaving the desert behind us; a scanty verdure was beginning to cover the mountains; but the smiling prospect before me was for a moment overclouded by an unfortunate accident. Paul had lent his dromedary to one of the men; and riding carelessly on a baggage-camel, in ascending a rough hill the girths of the saddle gave way, and Paul, boxes, and baggage, all came down together, the unlucky dragoman

completely buried under the burden. I was the first at his side; and when I raised him up he was senseless. I untied his sash and tore open his clothes. The Bedouins gathered around, all talking together, pulling, and hauling, and one of them drew his sword, and was bending over my prostrate interpreter, with its point but a few inches from his throat. Poor Paul! with his mortal antipathy to cold steel, if he could have opened his eyes at that moment, and seen the fiery orbs of the Bedouins, and the point of a sharp sword apparently just ready to be plunged into his body, he would have uttered one groan and given up the ghost. It was a startling movement to me; and for a moment I thought they were going to employ in his behalf that mercy which is sometimes shown to a dying brute, that of killing him to put him out of misery. I pressed forward to shield him with my own body; and in the confusion of the moment, and my inability to understand what they meant, the selfish feeling came over me of the entire and absolute helplessness of my own condition if Paul should die. But Paul was too good a Catholic to die out of the pale of the church; he could never have rested quietly in his grave, unless he had been laid there amid the wafting of incense and the chanting of priests. "The safety of the patient often consists in the quarrels of the physicians," says Sancho Panza, or some other equally great authority, and perhaps this saved Paul; the Arabs wanted to cut open his clothes and bleed him; but I, not liking the looks of their lancets, would not suffer it; and, between us both, Paul was let alone and came to himself. But it was a trying moment, while I was kneeling on the sand supporting his senseless head upon my knee. No parent could have waited with more anxiety the return to life of an only child, or lover watched the beautiful face of his adored and swooning mistress with more earnestness than I did the ghastly and grizzled face of my faithful follower; and when he first opened his eyes,