Egnog.

Such is the story of the Seven Sleepers, (with slight variations,) and I
know it is true, because I have seen the cave myself.

Really, so firm a faith had the ancients this legend, that as late as
eight or nine hundred years ago, learned travelers held it in
superstitious fear. Two of them record that they ventured into it, but
ran quickly out again, not daring to tarry lest they should fall asleep
and outlive their great grand-children a century or so. Even at this day
the ignorant denizens of the neighboring country prefer not to sleep in
it.

CHAPTER XLI.

When I last made a memorandum, we were at Ephesus. We are in Syria, now,
encamped in the mountains of Lebanon. The interregnum has been long,
both as to time and distance. We brought not a relic from Ephesus!
After gathering up fragments of sculptured marbles and breaking ornaments
from the interior work of the Mosques; and after bringing them at a cost
of infinite trouble and fatigue, five miles on muleback to the railway
depot, a government officer compelled all who had such things to
disgorge! He had an order from Constantinople to look out for our party,
and see that we carried nothing off. It was a wise, a just, and a
well-deserved rebuke, but it created a sensation. I never resist a
temptation to plunder a stranger's premises without feeling insufferably
vain about it. This time I felt proud beyond expression. I was serene
in the midst of the scoldings that were heaped upon the Ottoman
government for its affront offered to a pleasuring party of entirely
respectable gentlemen and ladies I said, "We that have free souls, it
touches us not." The shoe not only pinched our party, but it pinched
hard; a principal sufferer discovered that the imperial order was
inclosed in an envelop bearing the seal of the British Embassy at
Constantinople, and therefore must have been inspired by the
representative of the Queen. This was bad--very bad. Coming solely
from the Ottomans, it might have signified only Ottoman hatred of
Christians, and a vulgar ignorance as to genteel methods of expressing
it; but coming from the Christianized, educated, politic British
legation, it simply intimated that we were a sort of gentlemen and
ladies who would bear watching! So the party regarded it, and were
incensed accordingly. The truth doubtless was, that the same
precautions would have been taken against any travelers, because the
English Company who hav