down. Dan Slote, my room-mate,
is on shore. He remained here while we went up the Black Sea, but
it seems he has not got enough of it yet. I thought Dan had got the
state-room pretty full of rubbish at last, but a while ago his dragoman
arrived with a bran new, ghastly tomb-stone of the Oriental pattern,
with his name handsomely carved and gilded on it, in Turkish characters.
That fellow will buy a Circassian slave, next.

I am tired. We are going on a trip, tomorrow. I must to bed. Love to
all.

Yrs
SAM.

*****

U. S. CONSUL'S OFFICE, BEIRUT, SYRIA, Sept. 11. (1867)

DEAR FOLKS,--We are here, eight of us, making a contract with a dragoman
to take us to Baalbek, then to Damascus, Nazareth, &c. then to Lake
Genassareth (Sea of Tiberias,) then South through all the celebrated
Scriptural localities to Jerusalem--then to the Dead Sea, the Cave of
Macpelah and up to Joppa where the ship will be. We shall be in the
saddle three weeks--we have horses, tents, provisions, arms, a dragoman
and two other servants, and we pay five dollars a day apiece, in gold.

Love to all, yrs.
SAM.

We leave tonight, at two o'clock in the morning.

There appear to be no further home letters written from Syria--and
none from Egypt. Perhaps with the desert and the delta the heat at
last became too fearful for anything beyond the actual requirements
of the day. When he began his next it was October, and the fiercer
travel was behind him.

*****

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:

CAGHARI, SARDINIA, Oct, 12, 1867.

DEAR FOLKS,--We have just dropped anchor before this handsome city and--

ALGIERS, AFRICA, Oct. 15.

They would not let us land at Caghari on account of cholera. Nothing to
write.

MALAGA, SPAIN, Oct. 17.

The Captain and I are ashore here under guard, waiting to know whether
they will let the ship anchor or not. Quarantine regulations are very
strict here on all vessels coming from Egypt. I am a little anxious
because I want to go inland to Granada and see the Alhambra. I can go on
down by Seville and Cordova, and be picked up at Cadiz.

Later: We cannot anchor--must go on. We shall be at Gibraltar before
midnight and I think I will go horseba