unsympathetic governors, despatched to that city, able, despite the arbitrary power they wielded, to check the forces which were carrying the Author of the Faith towards His virtual emancipation and the ultimate accomplishment of His purpose. Men of letters, and even ‘ulamás residing in Syria, were moved, as the years rolled by, to voice their recognition of Bahá’u’lláh’s rising greatness and power. Azíz Pá_sh_á, who, in Adrianople, had evinced a profound attachment to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and had in the meantime been promoted to the rank of Valí, twice visited Akká for the express purpose of paying his respects to Bahá’u’lláh, and to renew his friendship with One Whom he had learned to admire and revere. Though Bahá’u’lláh Himself practically never granted personal interviews, as He had been used to do in Ba_gh_dád, yet such was the influence He now wielded that the inhabitants openly asserted that the noticeable improvement in the climate and water of their city was directly attributable to His continued presence in their midst. The very designations by which they chose to refer to him, such as the “august leader,” and “his highness” bespoke the reverence with which He inspired them. On one occasion, a European general who, together with the governor, was granted an audience by Him, was so impressed that he “remained kneeling on the ground near the door.” _Sh_ay_kh_ ‘Alíy-i-Mírí, the Muftí of Akká, had even, at the suggestion of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, to plead insistently that He might permit the termination of His nine-year confinement within the walls of the prison-city, before He would consent to leave its gates. The garden of Na’mayn, a small island, situated in the middle of a river to the east of the city, honored with the appellation of Ridván, and designated by Him the “New Jerusalem” and “Our Verdant Isle,” had, together with the residence of ‘Abdu’lláh Pá_sh_á,—rented and prepared for Him by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and situated a few miles north of Akká—become by now the favorite retreats of One Who, for almost a decade, had not set foot beyond the city walls, and Whose sole exercise had been to pace, in monotonous repetition, the floor of His bed-chamber.