The ride into Damascus itself remains still an expedition of glamour, for we reached the vicinity of the city by a high cliff, and the city burst upon us with great suddenness, its minarets stretching their delicate, arrow-like spires to the sky in so Oriental a fashion that even the practical hearts of the little American children responded with a thrill of excitement. Again, after an interesting stay in Damascus, we made our way back to Beyrout. While waiting for the steamer there my brother Elliott was taken ill, and writes in a homesick fashion to the beloved aunt to whom we confided all our joys and woes. Poor little boy! He says pathetically: “Oh, Auntie, you don’t know how I long for a finishing-up of this ever-lasting traveling, when we can once more sit down to breakfast, dinner and lunch in our own house. Since I have been sick and only allowed rice and chicken,--and very little of them--I have longed for one of our rice puddings, and a pot of that strawberry jam, and one of Mary’s sponge cakes, and I have thought of when I would go to your rooms for dinner and what jolly chops and potatoes and dessert I would get there, and when I would come to breakfast we would have _buckwheat cakes_. Perhaps I am a little homesick.” I am not so sure but what many an intelligent traveller, could his or her heart be closely examined, would find written upon it “lovely potatoes, chops and hot buckwheat cakes.” But all the same, in spite of “Ellie’s” rhapsody, off we started on another steamer, and my father writes on March 28, 1873: Steamer off Rhodes. Teedie is in great spirits, as the sailors have caught for him numerous specimens, which he stuffs on deck, to the edification of a large audience.