lible nuncio of God, had chosen her man. Or because he
was dissatisfied, ambition and ability not being equal. Or because he
was lazy.

Always there was work to do, as there was work for him now. Clouds of
sail and tubby steamboats went the crowded tracks of the world's waters,
not to succor and help but for gain of money. And Lesser Asia was
neglected, now that the channel of commerce to the States was opened
wide. Syria needed more than sentimental travelers to the Holy Land. It
needed machinery for its corn-fields and its mines. It needed prints and
muslins from the Lancashire looms. It needed rice and sugar. And it had
more to give than a religious education. Fine soap and fruit and wine
and oil and sesame it gave, golden tobacco, and beautiful craftmanship
in silver and gold, fine rugs from Persia. Brass and copper and
ornamental woodcarving from Damascus, mother of cities; walnuts, wheat,
barley, and apricots from its gardens and fields. Wool and cotton, gums
and saffron from Aleppo, and fine silk embroidery.

Others might race past Java Head to China for tea and opium. Others
might make easting around the Horn to the gold-fields of California.
Others might sail up the Hooghly to Calicut, trafficking with mysterious
Indian men. Others might cross to the hustle and welter of New York,
young giant of cities, but Campbell was content to sail to Asia Minor.
He brought them what they needed and they sent color and rime to prosaic
Britain, hashish to the apothecaries, and pistachios from Aleppo,
cambric from Nablus and linen from Bagdad, and occasionally for an
antiquary a Damascene sword that rang like a silver bell.

For others the glory and fame to which destiny had called them. For
others the money that they grubbed with blunted fingers from the
dross-heaps of commerce. But for Campbell what work he could do, well
done--and Lesser Asia ...

Section 5

Of all the seas he had sailed it seemed to Shane that Mediterranean had
more color, more life, more romance than any. Not the battles round the
Horn, not the swinging runs to China, not the starry southern seas had
for him the sense of adventure that Mediterranean had. Mediterranean was
not a sea. It was a home haven, with traditions of the human house. Here
Sennacherib sailed in the great galleys the brown Sidonian shipwrights
had made for him. Here had been the Phenicians with their brailed
squaresail. Here had been the men of Rhodes, sailors and fighters both