“He is all ready to carry out his plan to penetrate the wilds of Africa, where it would be impossible for him to take a bride, and he could not bear to be parted from one so young and charming as Miss Ketchum, were he to have the good fortune to capture her.” “Saved your life, you rascal!” whispered Zenas, and then hastened to bow low to the coy and confused lady from Boston. At Beirut the party split up, the professor and the boys going to Damascus, a distance of ninety-one miles, which was covered by an excellent narrow-gauge railroad, built by Swiss engineers. “We’re off, boys!” cheerfully exclaimed the professor, as the train finally started. “We’ll soon be in the oldest city in the world.” “Do you mean Damascus, professor?” inquired Dick. “Of course I mean Damascus! We’re not bound for any other place, are we? Did you think I meant New York? Did you fancy I was speaking of Hoboken? Hum! Haw!” “But there is no absolute proof that Damascus is the oldest city in the world. There may be older cities in China or India.” “There may be,” admitted the old pedagogue; “but we do not know about them. At least, Damascus is the oldest city we know anything about.” “That is quite true. If you had said that——” “Now look here, Richard, you are inclined to be altogether too wise. You keep yourself too well posted about the countries and places we visit, and thus you deprive me of the privilege of imparting information to you. It isn’t right. You make me feel that I am not earning my stipend as your guardian and tutor during this trip round the world. You place me in an embarrassing position. I wish you would feign ignorance, if you cannot do anything else.” Dick laughed. “All right, professor; I’ll try to reform. But it was your advice to us that we should post ourselves in advance on each place we visited, and I’ve been obeying instructions, that’s all.” “Haw! Hum! You’re inclined to be too obedient—altogether too obedient. Now here is Bradley—I haven’t observed that he has wasted much time reading up about different countries and cities.” “Sure not,” admitted the Texan. “It’s a heap too much trouble, for I know I’ll hear about the places from you and Dick when we hit ’em. This yere country sort of looks familiar.” “It does,” nodded Dick. “To me it looks like Southern Colorado or Northern New Mexico. It’s a land of irrigation. The mountains, the plains, the foliage, the mud houses, everything but the people, remind me of that portion of our own country.” “Quite true,” agreed Zenas Gunn; “although the fertile spots here have all been taken up and cultivated. For instance, look there, boys—look at that mountainside.”