We went to Saladin's tomb, and that is authoritative, though I confess that I could not realize, as we stood in that narrow building and viewed the catafalque in the centre, that the mighty Saracen hero of romance rested there. For me, he belongs only in tales of enchantment and fierce deeds, and not in that quiet place. I remembered that his sword was so sharp that a feather pillow dropped on its edge would fall on either side. Perhaps they have the sword there, and possibly the pillow to prove it, but I did not see them. A Turkish school turned out to look at us and smile. We looked and smiled back, and everybody was satisfied. It is certain that we look more strange to them than they do to us, now. I know this, for when I stop anywhere and look over our party, here amid the turbans and fezzes and long flowing garments of the Orient, I can see for myself that it is really our party that looks queer and fantastic and out of place--not these people at all. It is natural that one should realize this in Damascus, for Damascus is the great reality--the unchanged and changeless. Algiers was a framed picture; Constantinople was a world's Midway--a sort of masquerade, prepared for our benefit. Here it is different. No longer the country and the people constitute the show, but ourselves. One presently discovers that he is artificial--an alien, a discord--that he has no place here. These others are the eternal verities; their clothes are the real clothes--not ours, that change fashion with every year and season. One is tempted to abjure all the fanfare and flourish of his so-called progress--to strip off his ridiculous garments and customs and fall in with the long steady rhythm of the ages. Only, you don't do it. You discover objections to such a course. I could name some of them if I wanted to. Never mind; you couldn't do it anyway. You have been hurrying and sweating and capering about and wearing your funny clothes and singing in false keys too long. You cannot immediately put on the garb of the ages, and lock step with the swing of a thousand years. FOOTNOTES: [6] The pedler of bread cries, "O Allah who sustaineth us, send trade!" The pedler of beverages, "O cheer thine heart!" XXVII FOOTPRINTS OF PAUL