dust? Go thou with
him--(this to the servant) and show him the vault of the Toubeiyahs,
where she was buried.' This, in a supercilious air, while she drew
from the narghilah the smoke, which I could not relish.

"We come to the cemetery near the church in the centre of the town.
The vault where Henriette was laid, a plain, plastered square cell, is
not far from an oak which in the morning envelopes it with its shadow;
and directly across are palms, whose shades at sundown, make a vain
effort to kiss its dust. No grass, no flowers around; but much of the
dust of neglect. And of this I take up a handful, like 'the idiot
Franje'; but instead of carrying it away, I press therein my lips and
leave my planted kisses near the vault.--When the mothers and the
sisters of these sacred hills, O Henriette, can see the flowers of
these kisses in thy dust, when they can appreciate the sacred purity
of thy spirit and devotion, what mothers then we shall have, and what
sisters!

"I pass through the village descending on the carriage road to Jbail,
or Byblus. In these diggings the shrewd antiquary digs for those
precious tear-bottles of my ancestors. And everywhere one turns are
tombs in which the archaeologist finds somewhat to noise abroad. His,
indeed, is a scholarship which is essentially necrophagous. For
consider, what would become of it, if a necropolis, for instance, did
not yield somewhat of nourishment,--a limb, a torso, a palimpsest, or
even an earthen lamp, a potsherd, or a coin? I rail not at these
scholarly grave-diggers because I can not interest myself in their
work; that were unwise and unfair. But truly, I abominate this
business of 'cashing,' as it were, the ruins and remains, the ashes
and dust, of our ancestors. Archaeology for archaeology's sake is
pardonable; archaeology for the sake of writing a book is intolerable;
and archaeology for lucre is abominable.

"At Jbail I visited the citadel, said to be of Phoenician origin,
which is occupied by the mudir of the District. Entering the gate,
near which is a chapel consecrated to Our Lady of that name, where
litigants, when they can not prove their claims, are made to swear to
them, we pass through a court between rows of Persian lilac trees,
into a dark, stivy arcade on both sides of which are dark, stivy cells
used as stables. Reaching the citadel proper, we mount a high stairway
to the loft occupied by the mudir. This, too, is partitioned, but with
cotton shee