muslin, and everlasting flowers. She covered the little creature with such heavy quilts, that it seemed in danger of suffocation, then she closed the curtains round it, till there was no aperture left at which a musketo could enter.
After sherbet and coffee had been handed round by a black servant, I was led to the next room, where I found my brother with Habîb Nasîr, the husband of Leah, the proud father of a first-born son. I congratulated him, and his reply was a wish that I might soon have to congratulate my brother on a similar occasion. This is the customary answer.
In each of the rooms there were modern Greek pictures of sacred subjects, rude imitations of ancient Byzantine art, proclaiming that Habîb was a member of the Greek Church.
I returned to the consulate to prepare for our journey toward Jerusalem, Mr. Graham and Mr. H., a wanderer from the Crimea — then the seat of war — who had just arrived by Austrian steamer, having arranged to travel with us. Then our luggage was in the care of the muleteers, and our horses were ready, we took a slight collation of goat's-milk cheese, fruit, sweetened starch, and native wines, in Mrs. Kayat's room, seated on the cushioned floor, round a low table inlaid with mother of pearl.
After taking leave of our kind host and his family, we mounted at their door, their blessings and good wishes ringing in our ears, "Go in peace, and return to us in safety; return speedily; peace be with you." The children and servants echoed the words till we were out of sight. An old man, in a coat of many colors, shaped like a sack, and with a curious mosaic-looking vandyked pattern on the back of it, led my horse up the steep streets of stairs, through the crowded bazars, and out of the town gate, which we had entered in the morning. It is in the middle of the east wall, and is the only land gate. I must here remind my younger readers that wheeled carriages are not used in Palestine. I never saw even such a thing as a wheelbarrow there; in fact, the roads are so bad that such
