Abu Gosh at that time had the whole region of Southern Palestine in subjection clear to Jericho. He now provided a strong guard for the caravan. Lamartine found no difficulty in identifying the places around Jerusalem. “Almost never,” says he, “did I encounter a place or object the first sight of which was not to me as what I remembered. Have we lived twice or a thousand times? Is our memory simply an impression that has been obscured, which the breath of God brings out again vividly? Or have we a faculty in our imagination to anticipate and perceive in advance before we actually do behold?” The monks of the Convent of St. John the Baptist, in the wilderness of that name, received the travellers with sincere cordiality. Lamartine left there a part of his caravan, going on only with the Arabian and Egyptian guard. They confined their movements to visiting places in the suburbs, made historic by traditions of the New Testament. He pays a deserved tribute to the Turks for their management of the “Holy Sepulchre.” Instead of destroying it, they had preserved everything, maintaining strict police regulations, and a silent reverence for the place which the Christians were far from manifesting. While the intolerance of the various sects would lead the triumphant party to exclude its rivals from the place, the Turks are impartial to them all. The Mussulmans are the only tolerant people, he stoutly affirms. Let Christians ask what they would have done if the fortunes of war had delivered to them the City of Mecca and the Kaaba. On the thirtieth of October, the caravan set out for the river Jordan and the Dead Sea. On returning to the neighborhood of Jerusalem, Lamartine received a letter from his wife that determined him to forego the extending of his journey into Egypt. He went back to Bayreuth, arriving the fifth of November. Autumn in that country has the warmth, the renewing of vegetation and other conditions, like spring in the northerly climates of the temperate zone. Lamartine had purchased Arab horses of superb quality while in Palestine, and one for his daughter. It was at the end of November that he took her out for her first excursion with the animal. The air was exhilarating and the mountain scenery in its most attractive guise. In an ecstasy of excitement the young girl declared it the longest, most beautiful, most delightful ride that she had ever taken. It was also the last. On the second of December she was taken suddenly ill and died the next day. The parents were overwhelmed with grief. The last hope of their house was thus cut off in the glad days of adolescence. They remained at Bayreuth through the winter. On the fifteenth of April they set out for their return homeward and sailed for Constantinople.