y ship and start from the seashore for Meroe.

"Undoubtedly it would be better," the governor said; "but it were
wiser to sail another two days' journey down the coast and then to
journey by way of Axoum."

A week's rest completely recruited the strength of the girls, and
Jethro then engaged a passage in a trading ship which was going to
touch at various small ports on its way north.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE DESERT JOURNEY.

The journey was a long one. The winds were often so light that the
vessels scarcely moved, and the heat was greater than anything they
had felt during their journey. They stopped at many small ports on the
Arabian side; the captain trading with the natives--selling to them
articles of Egyptian manufacture, and buying the products of the
country for sale in Egypt. The party had, before starting, arranged
that they would land at AElana, a town lying at the head of the gulf of
the same name, forming the eastern arm of the Red Sea.[E] By so doing
they would avoid the passage through Lower Egypt.

[E] Now the Gulf of Akabah.

The question had not been decided without long debate. By crossing
from Arsinoe[F] to Pelusium they would at the latter port be able to
obtain a passage in a Phoenician trader to a port in the north of
Syria, and there strike across Asia Minor for the Caspian. Jethro was
in favor of this route, because it would save the girls the long and
arduous journey up through Syria. They, however, made light of this,
and declared their readiness to undergo any hardships rather than to
run the risk of the whole party being discovered either upon landing
at Arsinoe or on their journey north, when they would pass through
the very country that Amuba and Chebron had visited and that was
inhabited by Ruth's people.

[F] Now Suez.

All allowed that the time had long since passed when the authorities
would be keeping up a special watch for them; but as upon entering
port a scribe would come on board and make a list of the passengers
with their place of birth and vocation, for registration in the
official records, it would be difficult in the extreme to give such
answers as would avoid exciting suspicion.

When the vessel reached the mouth of the long and narrow gulf the
party were struck by the grandeur of the mountains that rose from the
water's edge on their left.

The captain told them that the chief of these was known as Mount
Sinai, and that barren and desolate as the land lo