At Jilfi the countess was arrested, a paralyzing blow for her, considering that she had covered more than half the distance to the Ruba-el-Khali, and that another two months would have found her on its borders, and that she had succeeded in winning the Sultan to the venture of attempting to cross it. He and his chiefs, who first wished to resist, parted from their guest with keen sorrow, and the Sultan presented her, as his parting gift, with a magnificent emerald, of which, however, she was robbed while being brought back as a prisoner and ill with fever to Damascus. There the Turkish authorities greeted her with soft words, declaring that they had acted only for her safety, but, though she was allowed to go free and to live in her own house, she was aware all the time that she was carefully watched. V--HELD PRISONER--ESCAPE TO EGYPT The account which she gives of the Turkish mobilization in the days that immediately followed is graphic enough: "Soldiers armed to the teeth pass," she writes, "driving before them villagers to be enlisted. The boys all look terrified. Patriotism means nothing to them; they loathe their Government and are frightened to death at the thought of becoming Turkish soldiers, who are treated like dogs. Those who can, fly and hide themselves in the mountains. At present the Lebanon is full of such fugitives, and, being very desperate and nearly mad with fright and hunger, they are quite dangerous to meet. I am told they hide like animals in the grass and bushes and live on wild cucumbers. Poor things." Then German officers arrived on the scene and things grew rapidly worse. "The commandeering in town," writes the countess, "is rapidly bringing about the utter financial ruin of many families. To-day every house was ordered to provide a hundred blankets or to pay a sum equivalent to their value. Those who cannot comply are thrown into prison. From the store at which I buy my provisions they have taken $2,500 worth of rice, sugar and coffee, the poor man's entire stock, without paying him a penny or even giving him a receipt. He is ruined. From another store they have taken carpets and rugs valued at $1,000 which are, I am told, destined for the private households of the officers! The same is, no doubt, the destination of $1,500 worth of ladies' silk stockings, linen and dresses, which were also commandeered! "A commission visited the manager of a firm of automatic pistols and took away 800 without paying for them, leaving the rest. Two days later the manager was arrested, under the pretext that he had purposely hidden the arms which the commission had not taken. They put him into prison, and only after a week's incarceration, his family having paid £50 to the Government, was released. Meanwhile he has not had a receipt for his guns."