It is impossible to shut out the sound of their creaking. I know of travelers who have been so distracted by the incessant, inescapable noise that they could not sleep in Hama; but we found the music of the wheels very soothing, like the distant roar of the ocean or a slow fugue played on some cyclopean organ. Now they are in unison, now repeating the theme one after another, now for a brief moment in a sublime harmony never to be forgotten, then once more together in the unison of a tremendous chorus. As we drift to sleep, the song of the river calls us back, back, back to the Beginning of Things. “Do mi fa, DO DO DO.” What care the wheels whether Saracen or Crusader conquer in the fight below! “Do fa sol, DO DO DO.” The chariots of Zenobia are rattling across the plain—or is it the fleeing cohorts of the Assyrian host? “Do sol la, DO DO DO.” The dark regiments of Pharaoh are coming up from the south, and the Hittite city rushes to arms. “Do mi sol, DO DO _do_ do.” And old Orontes is slowly pushing around the great wheels of the dream city, while the Iliad is unsung, and Cheops is unquarried, and the fathers of Abram still dwell in Ur of the Chaldees. FOOTNOTES [1] Song of Songs 4:11f, 5:15. [2] Isaiah 35:1f. [3] Hosea 14:5, 7. [4] Isaiah 60:13. [5] See map, page 62, and cross-section, page 64. [6] See further the author’s _The Real Palestine of To-day_, chapter III. [7] Rev. 2:17, etc. [8] Cf. Deut. 10:6, Josh. 9:17. [9] In 1913, the college team defeated the champions of the British Mediterranean Fleet. [10] The above figures are for the current year, 1913. With this exception, however, the chapter is not in any sense a composite, but describes the happenings of one actual field-day held during the author’s residence in Beirut. [11] Since this record was made, a new athletic field with a cinder track has been laid out adjoining the campus. [12] This is the correct rendering of Judges 3:3. [13] C. R. Conder, the eminent Palestinian archæologist, points out that Arabic grammar necessitates our translating _Jebel esh-Sheikh_ “Mountain of the Sheikh,” and derives the appellation from the fact that in the tenth century the founder of the Druse religion took up his residence in Hermon (Hastings, _Dictionary of the Bible_, _s. v._ “Hermon”). But no one who has seen the white head of the tall, strong mountain can help thinking of Hermon as itself the proud, reverend sheikh of the glorious tribe of Syrian peaks. [14] Cf. Luke 3:1. [15] Sura 5:34. [16] See the author’s _The Real Palestine of To-day_, chapter XV, “The War-path of the Empires,” and XVIII, “The Lake of God’s Delight.” [17] Numbers 21:33. [18] Isaiah 2:13, etc. [19] Job 1:15, 17. [20] Job 1:19. [21] Psalm 22:12, etc. [22] Luke 3:1. [23] _Antiquities of the Jews_, XV. 10.1.