r country:
The darkness of his heart is melted in the rising of an inward joy._

_It is like the sound of music heard long ago and half forgotten:
It is like the coming back of birds to a wood that winter hath made bare._

_I knew not the sweetness of the fountain till I found it flowing in
the desert:
Nor the value of a friend till the meeting in a lonely land._

_The multitude of mankind had bewildered me and oppressed me:
And I said to God, Why hast thou made the world so wide?_

_But when my friend came the wideness of the world had no more terror:
Because we were glad together among men who knew us not._

_I was slowly reading a book that was written in a strange language:
And suddenly I came upon a page in mine own familiar tongue._

_This was the heart of my friend that quietly understood me:
The open heart whose meaning was clear without a word._

_O my God whose love followeth all thy pilgrims and strangers:
I praise thee for the comfort of comrades on a distant road._

II

GOING UP TO JERUSALEM

I

"THE EXCELLENCY OF SHARON"

You understand that what we had before us in this first stage of our
journey was a very simple proposition. The distance from Jaffa to
Jerusalem is fifty miles by railway and forty miles by carriage-road.
Thousands of pilgrims and tourists travel it every year; and most of
them now go by the train in about four hours, with advertised stoppages
of three minutes at Lydda, eight minutes at Ramleh, ten minutes at
Sejed, and unadvertised delays at the convenience of the engine. But we
did not wish to get our earliest glimpse of Palestine from a car-window,
nor to begin our travels in a mechanical way. The first taste of a
journey often flavours it to the very end.

The old highroad, which is now much less frequented than formerly, is
very fair as far as Ramleh; and beyond that it is still navigable for
vehicles, though somewhat broken and billowy. Our plan, therefore, was
to drive the first ten miles, where the road was flat and
uninteresting, and then ride the rest of the way. This would enable us
to avoid the advertised rapidity and the uncertain delays of the
railway, and bring us quietly through the hills, about the close of the
second day, to the gates of Jerusalem.

The two victorias rattled through the streets of Jaffa, past the low,
flat-topped Oriental houses, the queer little open shops, the