streets, and heaps of vegetable refuse, that it was quite indispensable. We made our way to the narrow, ill-constructed, but well-supplied bazar, which is generally deserted at sunset, but that night the shops were all open. Pipes, red and yellow shoes and boots, embroidered slippers, Manchester prints, Damascus silks, purple linen, shawls, jars, lamps, and cooking utensils, fruit, sweetmeats, and samples of grain, were exposed by the light of a hundred lanterns. Groups of Arabs in their féte-day dresses were on all the counters, and in the open cafés and barbers' shops story-tellers and singers attracted earnest listeners. Showers of sugar-plums were thrown from one side of the place to the other, and boys were busy scrambling for them.
Mohammed Bek and Saleh, and a few Arab friends, spent the evening with us. One of them inquired what kind of stories or romances English people liked. We had recently read "Jane Eyre," so my brother began translating it to them, au courant, somewhat condensing it, and adapting it to Arab comprehension. The listeners were so interested that they came several successive nights for an hour or two to hear it to the end. I mention this because two years afterward, when traveling in the interior, we heard this story, somewhat altered and modified, but well told, by an Arab who did not know its source. We soon traced it to some of our guests of that night. Perhaps some future collector of Arabian tales may be puzzled by hearing the Oriental version of this very unoriental romance, and may fancy he has found the origin of the plot of "Jane Eyre," and rob the little imaginative recluse of Yorkshire of the credit of her wonderful power and originality. Æsop's Fables, freely translated in the same way, with the help of illustrations, gave great pleasure to our Arab friends. Our maps puzzled them, and excited their interest and curiosity, and they had faith in them when they found that by the assistance of a map of Palestine I, a stranger, could tell the names and directions of most of the towns and villages for miles around.
