Testament that are full of gentleness, of
charity, and of tender mercy; and then all the next day they stick to
their saddles clear up to the summits of these rugged mountains, and
clear down again. Apply the Testament's gentleness, and charity, and
tender mercy to a toiling, worn and weary horse?--Nonsense--these are for
God's human creatures, not His dumb ones. What the pilgrims choose to
do, respect for their almost sacred character demands that I should allow
to pass--but I would so like to catch any other member of the party
riding his horse up one of these exhausting hills once!

We have given the pilgrims a good many examples that might benefit them,
but it is virtue thrown away. They have never heard a cross word out of
our lips toward each other--but they have quarreled once or twice. We
love to hear them at it, after they have been lecturing us. The very
first thing they did, coming ashore at Beirout, was to quarrel in the
boat. I have said I like them, and I do like them--but every time they
read me a scorcher of a lecture I mean to talk back in print.

Not content with doubling the legitimate stages, they switched off the
main road and went away out of the way to visit an absurd fountain called
Figia, because Baalam's ass had drank there once. So we journeyed on,
through the terrible hills and deserts and the roasting sun, and then far
into the night, seeking the honored pool of Baalam's ass, the patron
saint of all pilgrims like us. I find no entry but this in my note-book:

"Rode to-day, altogether, thirteen hours, through deserts, partly,
and partly over barren, unsightly hills, and latterly through wild,
rocky scenery, and camped at about eleven o'clock at night on the
banks of a limpid stream, near a Syrian village. Do not know its
name--do not wish to know it--want to go to bed. Two horses lame
(mine and Jack's) and the others worn out. Jack and I walked three
or four miles, over the hills, and led the horses. Fun--but of a
mild type."

Twelve or thirteen hours in the saddle, even in a Christian land and a
Christian climate, and on a good horse, is a tiresome journey; but in an
oven like Syria, in a ragged spoon of a saddle that slips fore-and-aft,
and "thort-ships," and every way, and on a horse that is tired and lame,
and yet must be whipped and spurred with hardly a moment's cessation all
day long, till the blood comes from his side, and your con