w it. Messenger after messenger was despatched to
the culinary regions, to inquire if the boiled fowls were not yet in
an eatable condition. Each time we were promised that supper would
be ready "in a quarter of an hour," and each time nothing came of
it. At length, at ten o'clock, a table was brought into the room;
after some time a single chair, appeared, and then one more; then
came another interval of waiting, until at length a clean table-
cloth was laid. These arrivals occupied the time until eleven
o'clock, when the master of the house, who had been absent on an
excursion, made his appearance, and with him came a puny roast fowl.
No miracle, alas, took place at our table like that of the plain of
Saphed; we were but seven persons, and so the fowl need only have
been increased seven times to satisfy us all; but as it was, each
person received one rib and no more. Our supper certainly consisted
of several courses brought in one after the other. Had we known
this, we certainly should soon have arranged the matter, for then
each person would have appropriated the whole of a dish to himself.
In the space of an hour and a quarter nine or ten little dishes made
their appearance; but the portion of food contained in each was so
small, that our supper may be said to have consisted of a variety of
"tastes." We would greatly have preferred two good-sized dishes to
all these kickshaws. The dishes were, a roast, a boiled, and a
baked chicken, a little plate of prepared cucumbers, an equally
small portion of this vegetable in a raw state, a little pilau, and
a few small pieces of mutton.

Our host kindly provided food for the mind during supper by
describing to us a series of horrible scenes which had occurred at
the time of the earthquake. He, too, had lost his wife and children
by this calamity, and only owed his own life to the circumstance
that he was absent at a sick-bed when the earthquake took place.

Half an hour after midnight we at length sought our resting-places.
The doctor very kindly gave up his three little bedrooms to us, but
the heat was so oppressive that we preferred quartering ourselves on
the stones in the yard. They made a very hard bed, but we none of
us felt symptoms of indigestion after our sumptuous meal.

June 16th.

At five o'clock in the morning we took leave of our host, and
returned in six hours to Nazareth by the same road on which we had
already travelled. We did not, however, a