icably glad to be alive. We are delivered from those morbid
questionings and exorbitant demands by which we are so often possessed
and plagued as by some strange inward malady. We feel a sense of health
and harmony diffused through body and mind as we ride over the beautiful
terrace which slopes down from Baniyas to Tel-el Kadi.

We are glad of the green valonia oaks that spread their shade over us,
and of the blossoming hawthorns that scatter their flower-snow on the
hillside. We are glad of the crested larks that rise warbling from the
grass, and of the buntings and chaffinches that make their small merry
music in every thicket, and of the black and white chats that shift
their burden of song from stone to stone beside the path, and of the
cuckoo that tells his name to us from far away, and of the splendid
bee-eaters that glitter over us like a flock of winged emeralds as we
climb the rocky hill toward the north. We are glad of the broom in
golden flower, and of the pink and white rock-roses, and of the spicy
fragrance of mint and pennyroyal that our horses trample out as they
splash through the spring holes and little brooks. We are glad of the
long, wide views westward over the treeless mountains of Naphtali and
the southern ridges of the Lebanon, and of the glimpses of the ruined
castles of the Crusaders, Kal'at esh-Shakif and Hunin, perched like
dilapidated eagles on their distant crags. Everything seems to us like a
personal gift. We have the feeling of ownership for this day of all the
world's beauty. We could not explain or justify it to any sad
philosopher who might reproach us for unreasoning felicity. We should be
defenceless before his arguments and indifferent to his scorn. We should
simply ride on into the morning, reflecting in our hearts something of
the brightness of the birds' plumage, the cheerfulness of the brooks'
song, the undimmed hyaline of the sky, and so, perhaps, fulfilling the
Divine Intention of Nature as well as if we chose to becloud our mirror
with melancholy thoughts.

* * * * *

We are following up the valley of the longest and highest, but not the
largest, of the sources of the Jordan: the little River Hasbani, a
strong and lovely stream, which rises somewhere in the northern end of
the Wadi et-Teim, and flows along the western base of Mount Hermon,
receiving the tribute of torrents which burst out in foaming springs far
up the ravines, and are fed und