entire nation in this.

We had common ground to work on in the cause of the condemned people. It
was on this ground that we first met; as two swift streams that flow in
the same direction and so finally unite forever. All that could be done
was done speedily; for "the law's delay," whatever else must be laid to
the door of Russia, is not one of her sins.

As summer took flight we went south with the birds. For she surely felt
that she was dying. Besides, she had been impressed with the idea of
restoring Jerusalem and having this homeless race re-established in the
holy city. Her religion? I think it was all religions. I saw her kneel
in the Kremlin at Moscow, cross herself in St. Peter's at Rome, and bend
low at prayer in the Synagogue at Alexandria. I think she would have
done the same in a mosque. As stated before, I had, previous to meeting
her, been all over Syria. And so, whenever she referred to her cherished
idea, as she so often did, of forming Jewish settlements in and about
Jerusalem and restoring Israel, I took occasion to explain how
impossible and impractical it all was.

I remember telling her how that in a whole day's ride from Babylon
toward Jerusalem I had seen no living thing save a single grasshopper! I
explained to her that the path of civilization had been in the track of
the setting sun ever since the dawn of history, and that it was not in
the power of man to reverse this course. I attempted to show that the
tide of population would pour upon the salubrious and fertile shores of
the farthest west till the heart of civilization would beat right there.
I explained to her that wherever the great strong heart of commerce beat
strongest, there would be found the strongest and best of these people
whom she hoped to help; while the weak and helpless of that race would
remain stranded by the waters of the Levant, as in Russia now.

"Why not, then, let us anticipate this and build the city of refuge by
your great sea in the path of this civilization which you say will so
surely come?"

Like the golden doors of dawn was the great earnest idea to me as she
spoke. But of course I know, as I said before, that the "peculiar
people" could not be induced to brave the desert. They do not seek rest,
but action--employment in the marts. They would rest but a single night
even by the sweet waters of Jacob's well.

CHAPTER II.

As winter came on and Egypt began to be oppressively full of tourists,
it