Sweets of
companionship--Egypt--Strange things--Quiet weeks--Sinai--Freedom
of the desert--Crossing the Red Sea--Mount Serbal--Convent of St.
Catherine--In the Valley of the Saint--Tomb of Sheikh Saleh--Pools
of Solomon--Jerusalem the Golden--Bethel--Lebanon--Home
again--Fresh scenes--Algeria--Hanging gardens of the Sahel--Mount
Bubor and its glories--Rash act--At the twilight hour--Earthly
paradise--Fair Eve--Fervent love--Arouya--Nature's revenge--Not to
last--Eternal requiem of the sea--In the backwoods--Hunting
wolves--Prairies of California--Honolulu--Active volcanoes--Lake of
fire--Rare birds and wild flowers--Worship of Peleus--An
eruption--Mighty upheaval--Coast of Labrador--Shooting bears.

"The first morning that I wakened up away from home I found myself in
the Eternal City. I had always loved Rome. Here I thought I might lose
myself in ancient history. In imagination I trod the palace of the
Caesars, and in the Coliseum beheld the martyred Christians. I pictured
the gilded pageantries of the Tiber, the splendours of the pleasure-lost
citizens. I saw the vast Campagna clothed with its armies, listened to
the clash of arms and shouts of warriors ascending heavenwards. I walked
the Appian Way with St. Paul and at the Three Taverns seemed to hear his
voice in sorrowful farewell. At the shrine of Cecilia Metella I lingered
in sympathetic communion; and from the Pincio Hill watched the sunsets
of those matchless skies. Why are the skies of Rome more beautiful than
any other? The Vatican opened its doors to me and the Pope gave me his
most intimate and friendly benediction. I fear that I thought too
lightly of the latter.

"What just then was more to my purpose, in Rome I found a great friend.
He, Count Albert, was the nephew of the duke my mother had refused to
marry. We had been intimate from childhood, but he was five years my
senior. I need not say that he was a very different man from his uncle:
high-minded, earnest, a cultivated citizen of the world. About to visit
Egypt and Palestine, he begged me to join him. His happiness he declared
would then be complete.

"Thus chance, or an over-ruling Providence, decided for me. I willingly
acquiesced, and the many months we spent together remain as some of the
happiest of my life. Though never ceasing to mourn my loss, I quickly
threw off depression in the excitement of ever-changing scenes. Only in
the stil