fully avoiding contact with ourselves and the other inmates of the quarantine. He greeted us with a profusion of compliments on our healthful appearance, and congratulated us on having obtained the best room in the station, and especially on having it entirely to ourselves! He left us with stately bows, and, kissing his hand, said, "I shall have the pleasure to give you pratique to-morrow."
On July 3d, at half-past seven, we were set at liberty. We gladly mounted the steps at the back of the quarantine station, traversed the extensive burial-ground, and passed the Government storehouse, a large building outside the town, where a crowd of camels were waiting to be relieved of their burdens, and women, vailed and shrouded in white drapery, were standing in groups, with baskets of mulberries and grapes balanced on their heads. On our left hand were the moated and battlemented walls of Yâfa, and on the other, gardens of orange and lemon trees, palms and pomegranates, which threw a checkered shade upon the sandy ground. We soon came to the broad road, just outside the town-gate, where camels and peasants, mules and muleteers, were congregated, and a bustling market of fruit and vegetables was being held. Booths and tents, sheltering turbaned and tarbouched smokers, were pitched under tall trees; and the itinerant vendors of coffee, sherbet, and glowing charcoal—ready to light the hundreds of pipes and narghilés around—seemed to be in great request.
In passing under the archway into the town, we had to walk carefully, to avoid getting entangled in the camel ropes. I was glad to find shelter from the burning sun in the bazars, which are long arcades, shaded overhead with cloth or matting, with little open shops on each side. In many of them were shoemakers, cutting out yellow morocco slippers, or heavy red leather boots—tailors, marking out graceful patterns for gold embroidery-pipe-makers, modeling red clay bowls for chibouques—all seated on their heels, on little platforms, about two feet from the ground.
