or two, to see their holy fire miracle at Jerusalem in the Church of the Sepulchre there, and so would as a compensation have gone to see this one if I could have got any company. My American friends, however, say that they are "full on miracles," and will let this one pass.

We see here shepherds leading and not driving their flocks, and pass recesses in the hills-tombs of those who have in scriptural words "hewn them out sepulchres on high, and graved an habitation for themselves in a rock." To come now from Scripture to the Arabian Nights is all apropos of Damascus. Our guide points out the scenes of two of the thousand and one tales, and might point out another dozen. Nothing could be thought of more appropriately in connexion with all one here sees than those novelettes of Mohammedan life, scenery, and adventure.

The evening's sunset showed another view of Damascus, as it did "o'er Linden when the sun was low." The effect was grandly magnificent. The silvery-looking city and its emerald surroundings were beautified in all colours as by a celestial lime-light. A goodly pink hue was given to the buildings on which it shone, and a fine purple one to the shadows they threw. More than ever now did it look not as a city of this planet, but as one belonging to a far better, as a city left behind by the gods of old to show us what this world was before sin and sorrow came upon it, and what the next world may be.

Two notabilities of the place are passing in at one of its gates. The first is the Pasha who here rules as governor of the political head-quarters of Syria. To him are subject the lesser Pashas of Jerusalem, Acre, and Beyrout. We are told that he is a bigoted fanatic, and one quite capable of encouraging another such Mohammedan outbreak and massacre of the Christians as that of 1860. That things may not again come to so bad an end as on that occasion, the government of all the populous villages of the Lebanon range has been taken from him, and placed under Christian rule. The Turks are exasperated at this, and moodily sit groaning and grumbling

Massacre of Christians.

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at what they regard as an injury. It is a sad thing to see spots of earth so beautiful as Damascus and all the country from here across Lebanon, and down to seaside Beyrout, under the control of such semi-savages-men opposing all improvement and destitute of honour and humanity.

As evidence of that, we have passed two large villages on the road thither, in one of which a thousand Christians, and in the other eight hundred, were in 1860 massacred after surrendering their arms on a promise of protection from the Turkish Governor, Osman Bey. That infernal wretch shut them up to the torment of seven days' hunger and thirst, and then let in upon them a murdering horde of his brutal soldiers, The base cowardliness of this villain was shown in first disarming those who so innocently trusted in his word, and then, still afraid of them, weakening them by seven days' starvation. ere he ventured on their slaughter! These be the Turks that England fondles, pampers, and lavishes the blood of her armies and the millions of her treasuries upon-in return, getting that by which the bad ever reward their benefactors.

The other notability who has so passed us is a curio of a Bedouin-one Miguel, whose business was formerly that of acting as escort to travellers from here to Palmyra―a three days' journey. His duties in that way were similar to those of the ornamental sheik who took our party from Jerusalem to the Jordan Valley. Such mild doings would not necessarily have made of Miguel the little hero that he is now looked upon. Fame and fortune, however, favoured this dark man of the desert in an unlooked-for way. One of those for whom

he so acted as dummy guardian was an English lady of rank and title-a blue-blooded patrician. Whether he witched her with noble horsemanship, or by what other witchery, I am not told. Perhaps it was tent-life that had a charm for one wearied of the west-end of London. Much rather it may be that having got away from the forms of civilization and its fetters, she asserted herself and chose to her liking, and seemingly as foolishly as another London lady, who married in 1844 one of the Ojibbeway Indians then on show in that

city. "The gentle lady married to the Moor" lives here with her Bedouin, and it is to be hoped has not, like to the other one pining in American backwoods, repented a choice that to some might seem a rash one, to say nothing else of it.

The gardens of Syria are not of the sort that the western world understands by the name of gardens. There is no regularity, no laying out, nor anything apparently planned. It is all, therefore, the more really artistic-art being so concealed. The shrubbery, the plantation, the vineyard, the orchard, and the grove, are all mixed up in these gardens with the flowering plants. In this seemingly wild and natural state lies their great charm.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE OLDEST OF CITIES.

THOUGH the tumbling walls of Damascus are but poor defences to it now, its remaining gates are yet regularly closed by night. Entering by one of these I pass within the famous city, and find its roads and footways nearly as bad as those of the majority of Eastern towns. There is but one hotel to be found-kept by Demetri Caro, who is known generally by his first name only. The entrance is by a dingy door in an old rubble wall, and leads by a few further steps to a marblepaved courtyard. In the centre is a circular basin, having a central fountain jet, shaded by some lemon-trees. On each side of this yard two steps lead to an open apartment-sittingrooms for visitors. They are surrounded on three sides by cushioned benches. Three similar courtyards are to be found further on. Staircases at the corners lead to an upper story similarly planned as to the surrounding apartments.

Demetri's hotel is full of people, so that we are crowded out. I am, however, led over the flat roofs of two adjoining houses, and down a staircase into the courtyard of a third one, round which our party are bestowed, and bid to rest and be thankful. I am doubtful about finding my way back again to the hotel should I want to do so, and see no way, by bell or otherwise, of calling for assistance. To clear my ideas upon that and other matters, I souse my head in the cool water of the central basin, feeling all the better for it. Any liberty can be taken with water in Damascus-there is such plenty. It is so laid on all over the city by nature that no rates need be

paid, and it is wasted on principle-there is so much to make show of and to spare.

The rooms open to the courtyards have, in addition to the cushioned side benches, abundance of footstools, but there are no chairs. A central table is adorned with narghili pipes and boxes of mild light-brown tobacco. Getting again on to the house-tops, I look about on like flat roofs all around. These have each a small limestone garden-roller lying upon them, and it bothers me why. When Hassan comes the matter is cleared up, and I get the roller off my mind. The roofs are laid down in white clay, which the sun helps to crack. On a shower of rain coming and wetting this clay, they have to be speedily rolled over to close up the cracks and make watertight the apartments below. These roofs, like all roofs in the East, have no chimneys through them.

Demetri himself now comes upon the scene, having a ponderous album-looking volume under his arm. It is the "Visitors' book," in which we have to inscribe our names, whence from, and whither bound. There is a spare place for "Remarks" that are here invited, as they should be everywhere, and not repressed as rudeness. The book is a public one, and I am given permission to read and copy, which I do. Turning back, I find such visitors' names as Sir Tatton Sykes and Gordon Cumming. Travellers from distant Australia have left their names and opinions of Demetri and his hotel management, but the Americans outnumber as three to one those of other lands. It is comical in the heat we are suffering from in the beginning of May, to read some shivering Australian's record of other experience, as thus:

"1869, January 21. We found this hotel comfortable with the exception of the want of a fireplace-a want that has been the means of making our stay less pleasant than it would otherwise have been."

Then follow the signatures of the observant husband and wife -probably on a wedding tour. I can only think of a fireplace as a means of ventilation. Since leaving Australia I don't re