Perhaps you will ask, did you ever eat camel's flesh? Certainly. We do not get it in Beirut, as camels are too expensive along the sea-coast to be used as food, but in the interior towns, like Hums and Hamath, which border on the desert or rather the great plains occupied by the ten thousands of the Bedawin, camel's meat is a common article in the market. They butcher fat camels, and young camel colts that have broken their legs, and sometimes their meat is as delicious as beefsteak. But when they kill an old lean worn-out camel, that has been besmeared with pitch and tar for many years, and has been journeying under heavy loads from Aleppo to Damascus until he is what the Arabs call a "basket of bones," and then kill him to save his life, or rather his beef, the meat is not very delicate. The Arab name for a camel is "Jemel" which means _beauty_! They call him so perhaps because there is no beauty in him. You will read in books, that the camel is the "ship of the desert." He is very much like a ship, as he carries a heavy cargo over the ocean-like plains and "buraries" or wilds of the Syrian and Arabian deserts. He is also like a ship in making people sea-sick who ride on his back, and because he has a strong odor of tar and pitch like the hold of a ship, which sometimes you can perceive at a long distance. PART II. Perhaps you would like to take a ride with me some day, and visit some of the missionary stations in Syria. What will you ride? The horses are gentle, but you would feel safer on a donkey. Mules are sometimes good for riding, but I prefer to let them alone. I never rode a mule but once. I was at Hasbeiya, and wished to visit the bitumen wells. My horse was not in a condition to be ridden, so I took Monsur's mule. It had only a jillal or pack saddle, and Monsur made stirrups of rope for me. My companions had gone on in advance, and when I started, the mule was eager to overtake them. All went well until we approached the little stream which afterwards becomes the River Jordan. The ground was descending, and the road covered with loose stones. The rest of our party were crossing the stream and the mule thought he would trot and come up with them. I tried to hold him in with the rope halter, but he shook his head and dashed on. About the middle of the descent he stumbled and fell flat upon his nose. I went over his head upon my hands, but my feet were fast in the rope stirrups. Seeing that he was trying to get up, I tried to work myself back into the saddle, but I had only reached his head, when he sprang up. I was now in a curious and not very safe situation. The mule was trotting on and I was sitting on his head holding on to his ears, with my feet fast in the rope stirrups. A little Arab boy was passing with a tray of bread upon his head and I shouted to him for help. He was so amused to see a Khowadja with a hat, riding at that rate on a mule's head, that he began to roar with