virgin white
patch." Burton found it teeming with interest. There was hardly a mile
without a ruin--broken pillars, inscribed slabs, monoliths, tombs. A
little later he travelled as far northward as Hamah [232] in order to
copy the uncouth characters on the famous stones, and Drake discovered
an altar adorned with figures of Astarte and Baal. [233] Everywhere
throughout Palestine he had to deplore the absence of trees. "Oh that
Brigham Young were here!" he used to say, "to plant a million. The sky
would then no longer be brass, or the face of the country a quarry."
Thanks to his researches, Burton has made his name historical in the
Holy Land, for his book Unexplored Syria--written though it be in
a distressingly slipshod style--throws, from almost every page,
interesting light on the Bible. "Study of the Holy Land," he said,
"has the force of a fifth Gospel, not only because it completes and
harmonises, but also because it makes intelligible the other four. Oh,
when shall we have a reasonable version of Hebrew Holy Writ which
will retain the original names of words either untranslatable or to be
translated only by guess work!" [234] One of their adventures--with
a shaykh named Salameh--reads like a tale out of The Arabian Nights.
Having led them by devious paths into an uninhabited wild, Salameh
announced that, unless they made it worth his wile to do otherwise, he
intended to leave them there to perish, and it took twenty-five pounds
to satisfy the rogue's cupidity. Palmer, however, was of opinion that an
offence of this kind ought by no means to be passed over, so on reaching
Jerusalem he complained to the Turkish governor and asked that the man
might receive punishment. "I know the man," said the Pasha, "he is a
scoundrel, and you shall see an example of the strength and equity of
the Sultan's rule;" and of course, Palmer, in his perpetual phrase,
wondered what would happen. After their return to Damascus the three
friends had occasion to call on Rashid Pasha. "Do you think," said the
Wali, with his twitching moustache and curious, sleek, unctuous smile,
"do you think you would know your friend again?" He then clapped his
hands and a soldier brought in a sack containing four human heads, one
of which had belonged to the unfortunate Salameh. "Are you satisfied?"
enquired the Wali. [235]

61. Khamoor.

Having been separated from "that little beast of a Brazilian"--the
cat-torturing Chico--Mrs. Burton felt t