THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA. 267 Ptolemais, the St. Jean d'Acre of Richard and the Crusaders. Still we were not safe. The sun was settling away towards my distant home when we reached the shore of the sea. I shall never forget my sensations at the moment when I gained that shore; after the Red Sea and the Dead Sea, and the Sea of Galilee, it seemed an old acquaintance, and I spurred my horse into the waters to greet it. But I had no time to dally, for as yet I was not secure. I joined the last of the loungers outside the walls; the heavy gates were swung to as I entered; and when I pushed my jaded horse over the threshold of the gate I felt as happy as the gallant leader of the Crusaders when he planted the banner of England upon the walls of Acre. Soon in the peaceful cell of the convent, I forgot my toil and anxiety as well as Richard and the holy wars. The night before I had slept by the quiet waters of Galilee, and now the last sounds that I heard were the rolling waves of the Mediter ranean. CHAPTER XIX. A Ride on Donkeyback.-Caipha.-Adventure with a Consul.-Mount Carmel.-The Plain of Jezreel.-Convent of Mount Carmel.-Kindness of the Monks.-Curiosity Gratified. I ROSE next morning much fatigued. My strength had been greatly impaired by sickness and exposure, and I intended to give myself a day of rest, instead of which I committed an act of folly. The night before I left Jerusalem I had seen, at the house of my friend Mr. Whiting, the poetical pilgrimage of M. de la Martine; I had not time to read it through, and by chance opened it at the chapter containing the particulars of his visit to Caipha, and the glowing account which he gave of the two sisters of the Sardinian consul had inflamed in some degree my imagination. I had found it one of the most annoying circumstances attendant upon travelling in the East, that, in spite of the poetical accounts of Eastern beauty, though I had seen Georgian and Circassian women, I had never yet met with anything that to my mind was equal to the beauty of the European and American women. I had passed Caipha, and it was a direct retrograde movement to go there; but early in the morning, as I was walking on the ramparts of Acre, I looked back towards the little city, and the beautiful creations of the poet rose before me in most ravishing colours. I was worn down. There was no physician in Acre; and, perhaps, to bask an hour in the sunshine of beauty might revive and restore me. Paul too was under the weather; ever since his fall from the dromedary he had wanted bleeding, and it might do him good. In short, I had A RIDE ON DONKEYBACK. 269 been rambling for months among ruins and old cities, working as hard as if I were to be paid for it by the day; I had had enough of these things, and one glimpse of a beautiful girl was worth more to me at that moment than all the ruins of the Holy Land; but I would not admit to myself, much less to Paul, that I was making this retrograde movement merely to see a couple of pretty faces, and I ordered horses for Caipha and Mount Carmel. Horses, however, were not to be had, and we were obliged to take donkeys, which I considered unlucky. For the first time since I left Jerusalem, I brushed my tarbouch, my blue jacket, and gray pantaloons. I started on donkeyback. Caipha is distant a ride of about three hours and a half from Acre, all the way along the shore of the sea. About half an hour from Acre we crossed the river Belus in a boat. It was on the banks of this stream that Elijah killed the four hundred prophets of Baal, gathered unto Mount Carmel by the orders of Ahab. A dead level plain, fertile but uncultivated, stretched back for many miles into the interior, and in the front to the foot of Mount Carmel. We rode close along the shore, where the sand was every moment washed and hardened by the waves. The sea was calm, but the wrecks on the shore, of which we counted seventeen on our way to Caipha, told us that the elements of storm and tempest might lurk under a fair and beautiful face; all which was àpropos to my intended visit. On the way I thought it necessary to let Paul into part of my plans, and told him that I wanted to stop at the house of the Sardinian consul. Paul asked me whether I had any letter to him; I told him no; and, by degrees, disclosed to him the reason of my wanting to go there; and he surprised me by telling me that he knew the young ladies very well; and when I asked him how and when, he told me that he had assisted them in their cooking when he stopped there three years before with Mr. Wellesley. This was rather a damper; but I reflected that Haidee, on her beautiful little island, prepared with her own hands the food for the shipwrecked, and revived at the thought. We were now approaching Caipha. The city was walled all around; without the walls was a Mohammedan buryingground; and the gate, like the shields of Homer's heroes, was covered with a tough bull's hide. I rode directly to the consul's house; it was a miserable-looking place, and on the platform directly before the door stood a most unpoetical heap of dirt and rubbish; but I didn't mind that; the door was open, and I went in. The table was set for dinner, and I could not help remarking a few rather questionable spots on the table-cloth; but I didn't mind that; knives, forks, and plates were a spectacle to which I had long been unaccustomed, and my heart warmed even to the empty platters. I thought I had come at the witching moment, and I felt as sure of my dinner as if I had it already under my jacket. The consul was sitting on a settee, and I began the acquaintance by asking him if there was an American consul there. He told me no; at which I was very much surprised, as we had one at Jaffa, not so much of a place as Caipha; and I invited myself to a seat beside, the consul, and made myself agreeable. I soon found, however, that I was not so pleasant a fellow as I thought. The consul answered my questions, but his manner might be interpreted, "Don't you see you are keeping the dinner waiting?" I didn't mind that, however, but talked about the necessity of my government having a consul there, to entertain American travellers, and suggested that at Jaffa the government had given the appointment to the then acting Sardinian consul; still my friend was impenetrable. I tried him upon several other topics, but with no great success. During this time the mother entered, evidently in dishabille, and occasionally I got a glimpse of a pair of fine black eyes peeping at me through the door. At last, when I found THE PLAIN OF JEZREEL. 271 that he was bent on not asking me to dine, I rose suddenly, made a hundred apologies for my haste, shook him cordially by the hand, and, with most consummate impudence, told him I would call again on my return from Mount Carmel. Paul rather crowed over me, for he had met and spoken to the young ladies, and in the same place where he had seen them before. In about an hour we had reached the top of Mount Carmel; this celebrated mountain is the only great promontory upon the low coast of Palestine, and it is, beyond all comparison, the finest mountain in the Holy Land. The traveller at this day may realize fully the poetical description by the inspired writers, of the "excellency" of Mount Carmel. The pine, oak, olive, and laurel grew above a beautiful carpet of grass and wild flowers, and from amid this luxuriance I looked out upon the plains of Acre, the little city stretching out on a low point, like a mere speck in the water; and beyond, the mountains of Lebanon; on the left, along the shore of the Mediterranean to the ruins of Cesarea, the once proud city of Herod and of Cornelius the Centurion, where Paul made Felix tremble; in front, the dark blue sea, on whose bosom two transports, with Egyptian soldiers on board, were at that time stretching under easy sail from Acre to Alexandria; and behind, the great plain of Jezreel, One word with regard to this great plain. I had travelled around, and about, and across it; had looked at it from hills and mountains, and I was now on the point of leaving it for ever.` This plain, computed to be about fifteen miles square, is the "mighty plain," as it is called, of the ancients, and celebrated for more than three thousand years as the "great battle-ground of nations." From here Elijah girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel; it was on this plain that Barak went down, and ten thousand men after him, and discomfited Sisera and all |