f, and makes a poet of
the beholder. This is the explanation of the honors it has received,
beginning with the artists of the first kings, who could find no form
in all the earth to serve them so well as a model for the pillars
of their palaces and temples; and for the same reason Ben-Hur was
moved to say,

"As I saw him at the stand to-day, good Malluch, Sheik Ilderim
appeared to be a very common man. The rabbis in Jerusalem would
look down upon him, I fear, as a son of a dog of Edom. How came
he in possession of the Orchard? And how has he been able to hold
it against the greed of Roman governors?"

"If blood derives excellence from time, son of Arrius, then is old
Ilderim a man, though he be an uncircumcised Edomite."

Malluch spoke warmly.

"All his fathers before him were sheiks. One of them--I shall not
say when he lived or did the good deed--once helped a king who was
being hunted with swords. The story says he loaned him a thousand
horsemen, who knew the paths of the wilderness and its hiding-places
as shepherds know the scant hills they inhabit with their flocks;
and they carried him here and there until the opportunity came,
and then with their spears they slew the enemy, and set him upon
his throne again. And the king, it is said, remembered the service,
and brought the son of the Desert to this place, and bade him set up
his tent and bring his family and his herds, for the lake and trees,
and all the land from the river to the nearest mountains, were his
and his children's forever. And they have never been disturbed in
the possession. The rulers succeeding have found it policy to keep
good terms with the tribe, to whom the Lord has given increase
of men and horses, and camels and riches, making them masters of
many highways between cities; so that it is with them any time they
please to say to commerce, 'Go in peace,' or 'Stop,' and what they
say shall be done. Even the prefect in the citadel overlooking
Antioch thinks it happy day with him when Ilderim, surnamed the
Generous on account of good deeds done unto all manner of men,
with his wives and children, and his trains of camels and horses,
and his belongings of sheik, moving as our fathers Abraham and
Jacob moved, comes up to exchange briefly his bitter wells for
the pleasantness you see about us."

"How is it, then?" said Ben-Hur, who had been listening unmindful
of the slow gait of the dromedaries. "I saw the sheik tear his
beard while he curse