f night are changed into the blaze of day as suddenly as
the daylight vanishes into night.

Our supper consisted of rather a smoky pilau, which we nevertheless
relished exceedingly; for people who have eaten nothing throughout
the day but a couple of hard-boiled eggs are seldom fastidious about
their fare at night. Besides, we had now beautiful fresh water from
the spring, and cucumbers in abundance, though without vinegar or
oil. But to what purpose would the unnatural mixture have been?
Whoever wishes to travel should first strive to disencumber himself
of what is artificial, and then he will get on capitally. The
ground was our bed, and the dark blue ether, with its myriads of
stars, our canopy. On this journey we had not taken a tent with us.

The aspect of the heavens is most beautiful here in Syria. By day
the whole firmament is of a clear azure--not a cloud sullies its
perfect brightness; and at night it seems spangled with a far
greater number of stars than in our northern climes.

Count Zichy ordered the servants to call us betimes in the morning,
in order that we might set out before sunrise. For once the
servants obeyed; in fact they more than obeyed, for they roused us
before midnight, and we began our march. So long as we kept to the
plain, all went well; but whenever we were obliged to climb a
mountain, one horse after another began to stumble and to stagger,
so that we were in continual danger of falling. Under these
circumstances it was unanimously resolved that we should halt
beneath the next declivity, and there await the coming daylight.

June 9th.

At four o'clock the reveille was beaten for the second time. We had
now slept for three hours in the immediate neighbourhood of the Dead
Sea, a circumstance of which we were not aware until daybreak: not
one of our party had noticed any noxious exhalation arising from the
water; still less had we been seized with headache or nausea, an
effect stated by several travellers to be produced by the smell of
the Dead Sea.

Our journey homewards now progressed rapidly, though for three or
four hours we were obliged to travel over most formidable mountain-
roads and through crooked ravines. In one of the valleys we again
came upon a Bedouin's camp. We rode up to the tents and asked for a
draught of water, instead of which these people very kindly gave us
some dishes of excellent buttermilk. In all my life I never partook
of any thing with so ke