"Perhaps by this very route Abraham of old and those with him travelled; nor is it extravagance to say, the family we now meet may exhibit the exact appearance that the patriarchs did four thousand years ago--the tents and pots piled on the camels; the young children in one saddle-bag balancing the kids in the other; the matron astride on the ass; the maid following modestly behind; the boys now here, now there; the patriarch himself on his useful mare, following and directing the march. As we pass, he lays his hand on his heart, and says, 'Peace be with you; where are you going?--Depart in peace.'" Haran appears to be, without doubt, the ancient city of Nahor, where Laban lived, and where Jacob served for Leah and Rachel. Here, too, is Rebekah's well, and here our traveller beheld the very counterpart of the scene that Eleazar saw when he sought a bride for his master's son. By this time our author had so far identified himself with the desert tribes, their language, their interests, their enjoyment of the desert life, and their love of horses, that he seems to feel, and almost to speak, in the Arab style. We have never seen that interesting people so happily described and so vividly illustrated. If we had not so much before us still to investigate, we would gladly dwell upon the desert journey from Haran to Tel Bagdad, and on the raft voyage thence down the Tigris to Mosul. One graphic sketch of an Arab sheik must serve for many: his characteristic speech contains volumes of his people's history. "The young sheik was not, probably, more than seventeen or eighteen years of age; handsome, but with that peculiarly girlish effeminate appearance I have before mentioned as so frequently found among the younger aristocracy of the desert, and so strangely belied by their character and deeds. He now held my horse, and, apologising for his father's temporary absence, welcomed us. The tent was large and well made. We remained here smoking and drinking coffee till the sheik Dahhal arrived. He was fully dressed in silk--a fine figure of a man with light clear eyes. Wounds, received long ago, have incapacitated him from the free use of his hands, but report says he can still grasp the rich dagger at his girdle with a fatal strength when passion urges him. Though every feeling was subdued, there showed through all his mildness the baffled tiger, whose vengeance would be fearful--he resembled a netted animal, vainly with all its cunning seeking to break the meshes that encompassed him on all sides.