esture to his
world-transforming ditch. Then we go dancing over the yellow waves into
the full moonlight toward Palestine.

* * * * *

In the early morning I clamber on deck into a thunderstorm: wild west
wind, rolling billows, flying gusts of rain, low clouds hanging over the
sand-hills of the coast: a harbourless shore, far as eye can see, a
land that makes no concession to the ocean with bay or inlet, but cries,
"Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther; and here shall thy proud
waves be stayed." There are the flat-roofed houses, and the orange
groves, and the minaret, and the lighthouse of Jaffa, crowning its
rounded hill of rock. We are tossing at anchor a mile from the shore.
Will the boats come out to meet us in this storm, or must we go on to
Haifa, fifty miles beyond? Rumour says that the police have refused to
permit the boats to put out. But look, here they come, half a dozen open
whale-boats, each manned by a dozen lusty, bare-legged, brown rowers,
buffeting their way between the scattered rocks, leaping high on the
crested waves. The chiefs of the crews scramble on board the steamer,
identify the passengers consigned to the different tourist-agencies,
sort out the baggage and lower it into the boats.

* * * * *

[Illustration: Jaffa. The port where King Solomon landed his cedar beams
from Lebanon for the building of the Temple.]

My tickets, thus far, have been provided by the great Cook, and I fall
to the charge of his head boatman, a dusky demon of energy. A slippery
climb down the swaying ladder, a leap into the arms of two sturdy
rowers, a stumble over the wet thwarts, and I find myself in the
stern sheets of the boat. A young Dutchman follows with stolid
suddenness. Two Italian gentlemen, weeping, refuse to descend more than
half-way, climb back, and are carried on to Haifa. A German lady with a
parrot in a cage comes next, and her anxiety for the parrot makes her
forget to be afraid. Then comes a little Polish lady, evidently a bride;
she shuts her eyes tight and drops into the boat, pale, silent, resolved
that she will not scream: her husband follows, equally pale, and she
clings indifferently to his hand and to mine, her eyes still shut, a
pretty image of white courage. The boat pushes off; the rowers smite the
waves with their long oars and sing "Halli--yallah--yah hallah"; the
steersman high in the stern shouts unintelligible (and,