dd, then, to the story of that halcyon trip, and not much to
elucidate.

The old note-books give a light here and there that is interesting. It
is curious to be looking through them now, trying to realize that these
penciled memoranda were the fresh, first impressions that would presently
grow into the world's most delightful book of travel; that they were set
down in the very midst of that care-free little company that frolicked
through Italy, climbed wearily the arid Syrian hills. They are all dead
now; but to us they are as alive and young to-day as when they followed
the footprints of the Son of Man through Palestine, and stood at last
before the Sphinx, impressed and awed by its "five thousand
slow-revolving years."

Some of the items consist of no more than a few terse, suggestive words
--serious, humorous, sometimes profane. Others are statistical,
descriptive, elaborated. Also there are drawings--"not copied," he marks
them, with a pride not always justified by the result. The earlier notes
are mainly comments on the "pilgrims," the freak pilgrims: "the
Frenchy-looking woman who owns a dog and keeps up an interminable
biography of him to the passengers"; the "long-legged, simple,
wide-mouthed, horse-laughing young fellow who once made a sea voyage to
Fortress Monroe, and quotes eternally from his experiences"; also, there
is reference to another young man, "good, accommodating, pleasant but
fearfully green." This young person would become the "Interrogation
Point," in due time, and have his picture on page 71 (old edition), while
opposite him, on page 70, would appear the "oracle," identified as one
Doctor Andrews, who (the note-book says) had the habit of "smelling in
guide-books for knowledge and then trying to play it for old information
that has been festering in his brain." Sometimes there are abstract
notes such as:

How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing that no one had
ever said it before.

Of the "character" notes, the most important and elaborated is that which
presents the "Poet Lariat." This is the entry, somewhat epitomized:

BLOODGOOD H. CUTTER

He is fifty years old, and small of his age. He dresses in
homespun, and is a simple-minded, honest, old-fashioned farmer, with
a strange proclivity for writing rhymes. He writes them on all
possible subjects, and gets them printed on slips of paper, with his
portrait at the head. These he will giv