or all of us and our baggage. Then the other boatmen rush up and
scream and curse and try to get us to take their boats, but we say
nothing and push through them and climb down the steps to the boat. The
white caps are rolling and the boat dances finely. Mustafa puts up a
large three-cornered sail, Ali sits at the rudder, and with a stroke or
two of the oars we turn around into the wind and away we dash towards
the shore. The Meena (port) is before us, that white row of houses on
the point; and back among the gardens is the city of Tripoli. In less
than half an hour we reach the shore, but the surf is so high that we
cannot go near the pier, so they make for the sand beach, and before we
reach it, the boat strikes on a little bar and we stop. Out jump the
boatmen, and porters come running half naked from the shore and each
shouts to us to ride ashore on his shoulders. They can carry you and
Harry with ease, but I am always careful how I sit on the shoulders of
these rough fellows. There is Ibrahim on the shore with our animals, and
two mules for the baggage. We shall take beds and bedsteads and cooking
apparatus and provisions and a tent. Ibrahim has bought bread and
potatoes and rice and semin (Arab butter) and smead (farina) and
candles, and a little sugar and salt, and other necessaries. We will
accept Aunt Annie's invitation to breakfast, and then everything will be
ready for a start.

What is the matter with those boys in that dark room? Are they on
rockers? They keep swinging back and forth and screaming at the top of
their voices all at once, and an old blind man sits on one side holding
a long stick. They all sit on the floor and hold books or tin cards in
their hands. This is a Moslem school, and the boys are learning to read
and write. They all study aloud, and the old blind Sheikh knows their
voices so well that when one stops studying, he perceives it, and
reaches his long stick over that way until the boy begins again. When a
boy comes up to him to recite, he has to shout louder than the rest, so
that the Sheikh can distinguish his voice. There, two boys are fighting.
The Sheikh cannot and will not have fighting in his school, and he calls
them up to him. They begin to scream and kick and call for their
mothers, but it is of no use. Sheikh Mohammed will have order. Lie down
there you Mahmoud! Mahmoud lies down, and the Sheikh takes a stick like
a bow with a cord to it, and winds the cord around his ankles. A