DANGERS OF THE ROUTE.

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would follow us into the valley. I was satisfied that I had made a fortunate escape, not, perhaps, from personal danger, but from grinding exactions, if not from robbery; and, congratulating myself upon my good fortune so far, I began to feel my way for what I now regarded as important as before I had thought the journey to Petra, namely, a visit to the tomb of Aaron.

My companions opposed my going to it, saying that no Christian had ever done so; and that none but Mussulmans went there, and they only to sacrifice a sheep upon the tomb. I told them that I also designed to sacrifice; and that, like them, we regarded Aaron as a prophet; that my visit to Petra was nothing unless I made the sacrifice; and that my conscience would not be at ease unless I performed it according to my vow. This notice of my pious purpose smoothed some of the difficulties, as the Arabs knew that after the sacrifice the sheep must be eaten. The sheik was much more liberal or more indifferent than the rest, and my desire was finally assented to; although, in winding up a long discussion about the pedigree of Aaron, one of them held out to the last that Aaron was a Mussulman, and would not believe that he lived before Mohammed. He had an indefinite idea that Mohammed was the greatest man that ever lived, and in his mind this was not consistent with the idea of any one having lived before him.

My plans for the morrow being all arranged, the Bedouins stretched themselves out in the outer

chamber, while I went within; and seeking out a tomb as far back as I could find, I crawled in feet first, and found myself very much in the condition of a man buried alive. But never did a man go to his tomb with so much satisfaction as I felt. I was very tired; the night was cold, and here I was completely sheltered. I had just room enough to turn round; and the worthy old Edomite for whom the tomb was made never slept in it more quietly than I did. Little did he imagine that his bones would one day be scattered to the winds, and a straggling American and a horde of Bedouins, born and living thousands of miles from each other, would be sleeping quietly in his tomb, alike ignorant and careless of him for whom it was built.

A BOLD ENDEAVOUR.

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CHAPTER V.

A bold Endeavour.- Unexpected Obstacles. — Disadvantage of a Dress.-The Dead Sea.-A New Project.- The Tomb of Aaron. An Alarm.- Descent of the Mountain. — An awkward Meeting.- Poetic Licence.-All's Well that Ends Well.-Unexpected Dignities.-Arab Notions of Travel.

A MAN rising from a tomb with all his clothes on does not require much time for the arrangement of his toilet. In less than half an hour we had breakfasted, and were again on our way. Forgetting all that had engrossed my thoughts and feelings the day before, I now fixed my eyes upon the tomb of Aaron, on the summit of Mount Hor. The mountain was high, towering above all the rest, bare and rugged to its very summit, without a tree or even a bush growing on its sterile side; and our road lay directly along its base. The Bedouins again began to show an unwillingness to allow my visit to the tomb; and the sheik himself told me that it would take half the day, and perhaps be the means of bringing upon me some of the horde I had escaped. I saw that they were disposed to prevent me from accomplishing my object; and I felt sure that, if we met any strange Arabs, my purpose would certainly be defeated. I suspected them of stratagem, and

began to think of resorting to stratagem myself. They remembered the sheep, however, and told me that the sacrifice could as well be performed at the base as on the summit of the mountain; but this, of course, would not satisfy my conscience.

With my eyes constantly fixed on the top of the mountain, I had thought for some time that it would not be impracticable to ascend from the side on which I was. Paul and I examined the localities as carefully as a couple of engineers seeking an assailable place to scale the wall of a fortified city; and afraid to wait till they had matured some plan of opposing me, I determined to take them by surprise; and throwing myself from my horse, and telling Paul to say that we would climb the mountain here, and meet them on the other side, I was almost out of hearing before they had recovered from their astonishment. Paul followed me, and the sheik and his men stood for some time without moving, irresolute what to do; and it was not until we had advanced considerably on the mountain that we saw the caravan again slowly moving along its base. None of them offered to accompany us, though we should have been glad to have had one or two with us on our expedition.

For some distance we found the ascent sufficiently smooth and easy-much more so than that of Mount Sinai and, so far as we could see before us, it was likely to continue the same all the way up. We were railing at the sheik for want

ASCENT OF MOUNT HOR.

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ing to carry us around to the other side, and congratulating ourselves upon having attempted it here, when we came to a yawning and precipitous chasm, opening its horrid jaws almost from the very base of the mountain. From the distance at which we had marked out our route, the inequalities of surface could not be distinguished, but here it was quite another thing. We stood on the brink of the chasm, and looked at each other in blank amazement; and at a long distance, as they wound along the base of the mountain, I thought I could see a quiet smile of derision lighting up the grim visages of my Bedouin companions. We stood upon the edge of the chasm, looking down into its deep abyss, like the spirits of the departed lingering on the shores of the Styx, vainly wishing for a ferryman to carry us over, and our case seemed perfectly hopeless without some such aid. But the days when genii and spirits lent their kind assistance to the sons of men are gone; if a man finds himself in a ditch, he must get out of it as well as he can, and so it was with us on the brink of this chasm. Bad, however, as was our prospect in looking forward, we had not yet begun to look back; and as soon as we saw there was no possibility of getting over it, we began to descend; and groping, sliding, jumping, and holding on with hands and feet, we reached the bottom of the gully; and, after another hard half hour's toil, were resting our wearied limbs upon the opposite brink, at about the same elevation as that of the place from which we had started.