might. In the general eagerness to help, they kept on turning until they had carried Paul above the window, and brought his neck up short under the beam, his feet struggling to hold on to the sill of the door. He roared out lustily in Greek and Arabic; and while they were helping to disencumber him of his multifarious armour, he was cursing and berating them for a set of blundering workmen, who had almost broken the neck of as good a Christian as any among them. Probably, since the last incursion of the Bedouins, the peaceful walls of the convent had not been disturbed by such an infernal clatter.

The monks had been roused from sleep, and some of them were hardly yet awake; the superior was the last who came, and his presence quickly restored order. He was a remarkably noble-looking old man, of more than sixty. He asked me my country, and called me his child, and told me that God would reward me for coming from so distant a land to do homage on the holy mountain; and I did not deny the character he ascribed to me, or correct his mistake in supposing that the motive of my journey was purely religious; and, looking upon me as a devout pilgrim, he led me through a long range of winding passages, which seemed like the streets of a city, into a small room spread with mats, having a pile of coverlets in one corner, and wearing an appearance of comfort that could be fully appreciated by one who had then spent ten nights in the desert. I threw myself on the mats with a feeling of gratitude, while the superior renewed his welcome, telling me that the convent was the pilgrim's home, and that everything it contained was mine for a week, a month, or the rest of my days. Nor did he neglect my immediate wants, but, with all the warmth and earnestness of a man who could feel for others' woes in so important a matter as eating, expressed his regret that meat was always a forbidden thing within the walls of the convent, and that now, during their forty days of fasting,

even fish and eggs were proscribed. I told him that I was an invalid, and wanted only the plainest and simplest viands, but insinuated that speed was of more importance than richness of fare, having eaten only a biscuit and an orange since morning. The cook of the convent, however, a lay brother in his novitiate, was not used to do things in a hurry, and before he was ready I felt myself goaded by the fiend of famine; and when he came with a platter of beans and a smoking pilau of rice, I made such an attack upon them as made the good superior stare with wonder and admiration; and I have no doubt that, before I had done, he must have thought a few more such invalids would bring him and the whole brotherhood to actual starvation.

The superior was a Greek by birth, and though it was forty years since he had first come to the convent at Sinai, and twenty years since he entered it for the last time, he was still a Greek in heart. His relations with his native land were kept up by the occasional visits of pilgrims. He had heard of their bloody struggle for liberty, and of what America had done for her in her hour of need, and he told me that, next to his own country, he loved mine; and by his kindness to me as an individual, he sought to repay, in part, his country's debt of gratitude. In my wanderings in Greece, I had invariably found the warmest feeling towards my country. I had found it in the offices of government, in my boatmen, my muleteer, and I remember a ploughman on immortal Marathon sang in my greedy ears the praises of America. I had seen the tear stream down the manly cheeks of a mustached Greek when he talked of America. I had seen those who had received directly from the hands of my countrymen the bounty that came from home. One, I remember, pointed me to a family of sons and daughters who, he told me, were saved from absolute starvation by our timely help; and so dearly was our country loved

there, that I verily believe the mountain robber would have spared the unprotected American.

I knew that this feeling existed in Greece, but I did not expect to find it thus glowing in the wilderness of Sinai. For myself, different in this respect from most other travellers, I liked the Greeks. Travellers and strangers condemn the whole people as dishonest, because they are cheated by their boatmen or muleteers, without ever thinking of their four centuries of bitter servitude; but when I remembered their long oppression and galling chains, instead of wondering that they were so bad, I wondered that they were not worse. I liked the Greeks; and when I talked of Greece and what I had seen there, of the Bavarians lording it over the descendants of Cimon and Miltiades, the face of the superior flushed and his eyes flashed fire; and when I spoke of the deep interest their sufferings and their glorious struggle had created in America, the old man wept. Oh, who can measure the feeling that binds a man to his native land! Though forty years an exile, buried in the wilderness, and neither expecting nor wishing ro revisit the world, he loved his country as if his foot now pressed her soil, and under his monkish robe there glowed a heart as patriotic as ever beat beneath a soldier's corslet. The reader will excuse an unusual touch of sensibility in me when he reflects upon my singular position, sitting at the base of Mount Sinai, and hearing from the lips of a white-bearded Greek the praises of my beloved country. He sat with me till the ringing of the midnight bell for prayers, when I threw myself upon the mat, and, before the hollow sounds had died away in the cloisters, I was fast asleep.

Ascent of Sinai.-A Miracle.-The Grotto of Elias.--A Monkish Legend. -The Pinnacle of Sinai.-Anchorites.-Mohammed and his Camel.-An Argument.-Legend of St. Catharine.-The Rock of the Tables.-The Stone struck by Moses.-Description of the Convent.-Habits and Character of its Inmates.

THE next day was one of the most interesting of my life. At eight o'clock I was breakfasting; the superior was again at my side; again offering me all the convent could give, and urging me to stay a month, a fortnight, a week, at least to spend that day with him, and repose myself after the fatigues of my journey; but from the door of the little room in which I sat I saw the holy mountain, and I longed to stand on its lofty summit. Though feeble and far from well, I felt the blood of health again coursing in my veins, and congratulated myself that I was not so hackneyed in feeling as I had once supposed. I found, and I was happy to find, for the prospective enjoyment of my farther journey, that the first tangible monument in the history of the Bible, the first spot that could be called holy ground, raised in me feelings that had not been awakened by the most classic ground of Italy and Greece, or the proudest monuments of the arts in Egypt.

Immediately after breakfast I rose to ascend the mountain. The superior conducted me through the convent, which, even more than at night, seemed like a small city, through long galleries built of stone, with iron doors, and finally through a long subterraneous passage to the outer garden, a beautiful spot in the midst of the surrounding bar

renness, now blooming with almonds and oranges, lemons, dates, and apricots, and shaded by arbours of grape-vines to the extreme end of the walls. At this moment I gave but a passing glance at the garden; and hurrying on to the walls, where a trusty Arab was sitting as sentinel, I descended by a rope, the superior, or papa, as he is called, bidding me farewell, and telling me not to fatigue myself or be long away. At the foot of the wall I found Toualeb waiting orders for my final departure. He said that he must consult with his tribe before he could make any bargain; and I told him to come to the convent in two days, prepared to start upon the third.

Immediately behind the wall of the convent we began to ascend. A Bedouin dwarf, the first specimen of deformity I had seen among the Arabs, led the way, with a leather bag of refreshments on his back. An old monk followed, with long white hair and beard, supporting himself by a staff; after him came a young novice from Corfu, who spoke Italian, and then Paul and myself. For some time the ascent was easy. Ever since the establishment of the convent, it had been the business of the monks to improve the path to the top of the mountain; and for about twenty minutes we continued ascending by regular steps. In half an hour we came to a beautiful fountain under an overhanging rock. Besides the hallowed localities in and around the mountain, consecrated by scenes of Bible history, almost every spot has some monkish legend, of which that connected with the fountain is a specimen. Taking a long draught from its stony bed, our younger companion began the story somewhat in the usual Eastern form. "Once there was a poor shoemaker" who, in making his pilgrimage to the holy mountain, on a hot day, sat down under the shade of the impending rock. He was an industrious man, and, while resting himself, took out his cobbling materials, and began to cobble; he was a good man, and while he sat