On the last day of our journey between Djerabis and Mosul, while contemplating at times the prevailing “abomination of desolation” of a ruin-covered waste, we continually referred to the novel excitement which had been ours as we gazed on the hallowed land of the patriarchs about Haran and viewed in Nisibis the fate of a once splendid home of letters and culture. Traversing a region of hoar antiquity, whose annals and legends so captivate the fancy, where turbaned nomads, happy in their felt tents, enjoy the unrestricted freedom of the desert, ours was a sensation and a pleasure unknown in the rush and turmoil and savage energy of our high-pressure civilization of Europe and America. And while the eye delighted in the marvelous succession of contrasts in the landscapes--where rugged mountains alternate with endless plains and “spots of verdure lie strewn like islets amid shoreless seas of sand”--the mind ever pondered on the whirlpool of vicissitudes which has made Mesopotamia unique among the regions of the earth--where, during its long and eventful history, civilization has been succeeded by barbarism and grandeur by decay and death. But as one surveyed this land of former glory and present desolation, one loved to think that “before his eyes the sands of an expiring epoch were fast running out; and the hour-glass of destiny was once again being turned on its base.” It was with this reflection that we completed another lap of our journey and that, travel-worn, we finally arrived at Mosul, the once famous emporium on the arrow-swift Tigris.[317] CHAPTER XIII THE CHURCHES OF THE EAST NESTORIAN, MONOPHYSITE AND OTHER EASTERN CHURCHES Holy Father, keep them in Thy name whom Thou hast given me; that they may be one, as we also are. St. John, xvii: 11. Our arrival at Mosul was to us a cause of gratification for many reasons. Not the least of these was the very cordial reception tendered us by the good Sons of St. Dominic whose hospitality to wayfarers like ourselves has always been as proverbial as that of the Franciscans. Indeed, the friars of both these venerable religious orders seem, particularly in the Orient, to have made their own, the beautiful Armenian saying “A guest comes from God.”