"One day here at Cartagena," she writes, "while swimming some distance out at sea, I was followed and attacked by a big dolphin. Luckily an officer at the fortress had seen it, and he fired on the dolphin. But before killing him, one bullet went through my right arm! I must say in fairness to the dolphin that it really was not he who first attacked me. I saw him following me, and I thought I could have a little ride on his back, knowing that dolphins are good-natured, as a rule. But he misunderstood my attentions and turned on me, and, had not the second shot been fired an instant later, I should have been lost." The countess made the journey to Beyrout via Port Said. From Beyrout she went by train to Damascus (a day's journey), where she had planned to live for a time and improve her knowledge of Arabic, which is one of the six languages which she speaks, before setting out for the desert. To begin with, she put up at the only European hotel in this famous city of the East, and found its proprietor to be a strange character, indeed. Untidy of person and appallingly rude in manner, "he reigned there," writes the countess, "with absolute despotism. This his monopoly of the European hotel business in Damascus enabled him to do, as the Arab hostelries are impossible for foreigners. "Here is a little example of his delightful ways. One day an English visitor asked for a bath and, as answer, was told to get his luggage ready and leave the hotel in two hours' time, as his hotel had no room for people who were dirty enough to need a bath! It seemed to be a special passion and sport of his to turn people out of his hotel, and any one to whom he took the smallest dislike was ejected without the slightest consideration. Those who won his favor, however, he entertained with jokes and stories worthy of an old pirate!" She met both the English and Russian consuls, who placed themselves at her service and introduced her to other Europeans likely to advise her wisely in the matter of engaging her caravan and getting acquainted with friendly Arab chiefs, who would be able to give her a certain amount of protection at the outset of her journey, and eventually she found an old Syrian woman willing to let her house and act as cook and general factotum. III--UNDER ESPIONAGE IN DAMASCUS And so she settled down, and from this time, the early days of May, until when in June she began her journey the countess, with no other protector than old Sitt Trusim, as her bent and shriveled landlady, who proved to be the most capable of spies, was called, lived the life of a Syrian woman of the upper class, wearing the native dress, smoking the nargileh, studying Arabic diligently and always dreaming of what would happen when she was alone with her camels and the Arabs under the desert stars.