Thothmes, Rameses and Queen Hatasu. I am not sure whether it was upon this visit or a subsequent one, that I saw in the Museum at Cairo the mummied face of the Pharaoh who ruled Egypt in the time of Joseph. The features and the hair were so well preserved that one gathers just what sort of looking man this Pharaoh must have been. Of all the wonders that Archaeology has revealed nothing has so much impressed me as looking upon the very face that Joseph saw. Jaffa. January 1, 1896. It’s all just as it was! The house of Simon the Tanner, the queer little hotel kept by the German religious colonists, the big oranges, the delay of the steamer. We are toiling away at the Old and New Testaments. Have much enjoyed talks with young Bliss, son of President Bliss of Beirut College, a learned man bred for the orthodox church and now a sort of Unitarian. He is excavating in and about Jerusalem and is tracing the site of the old walls. We flounder along in Biblical history. We have now got the Jews out of Egypt and pulled Jericho about the ears of the unfortunate inhabitants. We have stopped the sun in the Valley and hanged the Five Kings. Now we are tackling Saul, David and Solomon. How perfectly gorgeous that old heathen’s love songs are! * * * * * The Bible you gave me before I left has proved invaluable. All through Palestine my Bible and my guidebook have hardly left my hands. My knowledge of the oratorios comes in well. I shall enjoy them as never before when I get back to Boston. “What is the difference between Elisha and Elijah?” I heard an American tourist ask the other day. The words of our great basso, Myron Whitney, rang in my ears; I heard the stirring chorus from the “Elijah”! I heard the tourist just quoted say to a fellow traveler: “To-morrow we are going to see the Garden of the Yosemite,” meaning the Garden of Gethsemane. This showed how sadly the study of the Bible is neglected in modern education. Our stay in Palestine was all too short. We had promised to return to Rome for the end of the season and in February we regretfully left the Holy Land for the Eternal City. During my absence J. had made some necessary alterations to our apartment, adding, among other things, a fireplace to our spare room, where our young guest soon began to feel herself at home. * * * * * Rome. February 23, 1896. Great depression here over the Abyssinian War. The poverty is very sad, and the Adowa defeat casts a gloom. It seems now that the carrying on of the war is a matter of pride and a fear of loss of Italy’s prestige; the pride will cost the nation a cruel tribute of blood, treasure and broken hearts.