lycarp, the second Bishop of Smyrna, was executed here because he
would not recant his faith; he was a disciple of the Apostle John, and
this incident shows the antiquity of the place.

The trade of Smyrna exceeds that of Constantinople: five thousand
people are engaged in making rugs, but the best ones are brought in on
camel back from seven hundred miles away. They have a curious way of
selling the rugs that arrive from the interior: the dealer must buy the
unopened bales with no opportunity to examine the rugs, so it is really
a lottery and feeds the desire for gambling that prevails in business
dealings in the Orient.

Smyrna is a beautiful, oriental city; it produces nothing, but
exchanges everything and gets a shave for doing it: it is the home of
Eastern luxury and of the finest women in Asia. Much more could be
written about this city with a guide-book as a basis of information,
but it would not be interesting produced in this way.

We heard a native "ragtime" band, playing tom-tomic strains--the lyric
style of dinner-gong music that tears holes in the air. The leader was
an imitator of Sousa and had his gymnastic eccentricities down to a
fine point. He executed a fantasia on his horn of plenty that brought
a shower of silver on the stage. We were told that the members of the
orchestra were called the "Flowers of Music from Stamboul," and were
working their passage to the "halls" of the European capitals. May the
hat never be returned empty nor the charm of their work grow less!

THE HOLY LAND

JAFFA

Our next stopping place was Jaffa, the port of Jerusalem. The water at
the landing is very rough, but the sturdy natives jump into the boats and
show rare skill in handling the passengers, tossing them round like sheep
into safe spots of vantage in the large boats used for disembarkation.

Jaffa has a population of 35,000. It is celebrated for its fine oranges,
which grow in profusion about the city to the extent of 8,000,000 oranges
every year. It has fine trains of camels, and 15,000 pilgrims to the
Holy Land pass through it annually, many of them Russian pilgrims. It
costs them about $60 to make the trip, and many of them spend their lives
in saving this money for the purpose. The railroad to Jerusalem is
fifty-four miles long. Simon the tanner was born here; his house was
supposed to be on the hillside, but another house farther down the hill
at the water-front was agreed on by those fina