rgic Dollar is not in fact a
far cry. It has been remarked that he always dreamt of adventures, of
long journeys across the desert or across the sea. He never was
satisfied with the seen horizon, we are told, no matter how vast and
beautiful. His soul always yearned for what was beyond, above or
below, the visible line. And had not the European tourist alienated
from him the love of his mare and corrupted his heart with the love of
gold, we might have heard of him in Mecca, in India, or in Dahomey.
But Shakib prevails upon him to turn his face toward the West. One
day, following some tourists to the Cedars, they behold from
Dahr'ul-Qadhib the sun setting in the Mediterranean and make up their
minds to follow it too. "For the sundown," writes Shakib, "was more
appealing to us than the sunrise, ay, more beautiful. The one was so
near, the other so far away. Yes, we beheld the Hesperian light that
day, and praised Allah. It was the New World's bonfire of hospitality:
the sun called to us, and we obeyed."

CHAPTER III

VIA DOLOROSA

In their baggy, lapping trousers and crimson caps, each carrying a
bundle and a rug under his arm, Shakib and Khalid are smuggled through
the port of Beirut at night, and safely rowed to the steamer. Indeed,
we are in a country where one can not travel without a passport, or a
password, or a little pass-money. And the boatmen and officials of the
Ottoman Empire can better read a gold piece than a passport. So,
Shakib and Khalid, not having the latter, slip in a few of the former,
and are smuggled through. One more longing, lingering glance behind,
and the dusky peaks of the Lebanons, beyond which their native City of
Baal is sleeping in peace, recede from view. On the high sea of hope
and joy they sail; "under the Favonian wind of enthusiasm, on the
friendly billows of boyish dreams," they roll. Ay, and they sing for
joy. On and on, to the gold-swept shores of distant lands, to the
generous cities and the bounteous fields of the West, to the Paradise
of the World--to America.

We need not dwell too much with our Scribe, on the repulsive details
of the story of the voyage. We ourselves have known a little of the
suffering and misery which emigrants must undergo, before they reach
that Western Paradise of the Oriental imagination. How they are
huddled like sheep on deck from Beirut to Marseilles; and like cattle
transported under hatches across the Atlantic; and bullied and
browbeate