I was, therefore, supplied with a pyramid of rice and six or seven elaborately cooked dishes all to myself, and squatted on one mat, while a few yards off the saint, my host, and all his brothers squatted on another. When they had finished their repast their places were occupied by others, and I counted altogether more than fifty persons feeding on the mosque terrace at my host's expense. Dinner over, they all trooped in to pray, and I listened to the monotonous chanting of the Koran till it was time to go to bed. My host offered me a mat in the mosque, where I should have a chance of seeing the miraculous disappearance of the negro; but as I had no faith in this, and a great deal in the snoring by which I should be disturbed, I slept in a room apart, as exclusively as I had dined. I was surprised next morning to observe a total change in the saint's demeanour. All the supercilious pride of the previous evening had vanished, and we soon became most amiable to each other. That he was a fanatic hater of the Giaour I felt no doubt, but for some reason he had deemed it politic to adopt an entirely altered demeanour. It was another illustration of the somewhat painful lesson which one has to learn in one's intercourse with Orientals. They must never be allowed to outswagger you. THE JORDAN VALLEY CANAL. Haifa, Nov. 10.—In one of my former letters I described the nature of the concession which had been obtained by some capitalists at Beyrout for the construction of a railway from Haifa to Damascus, and of the survey of the line, which had already been completed half-way to the latter city. The matter has been the subject of a good deal of financial intrigue, and the capital which was sought for in London has not been forthcoming in consequence. A new element of uncertainty has just been imported into the project by the agitation created by the proposal to connect the Red Sea with the Mediterranean by means of a ship canal, which, commencing at Haifa, should be cut through the plain of Esdraelon to the valley of the Jordan, letting the waters of the Mediterranean into the Ghor, as that valley is called, and connecting the lower end of the Dead Sea with the Red Sea by a canal which should debouch at Akaba.