mound was once coated with small stone or brick, making a very slippery surface. At present the ascent is made by a long, winding path; but even now it is so steep as almost to be dangerous. Like every other citadel in Syria, this one was held in rapid alternation by Crusaders and Saracens ; but nothing of the old castle now remains save a few yards of tumbling wall and a ruined gateway.

As we came down onto the plain and had a nearer view of the acropolis, we seemed to distinguish a multitude of houses be

terest and impressiveness in every Eastern city: first the ruins of former power and grandeur, then the graves of those who trusted in that power and gloried in that grandeur, last the modern town with its poverty and ignorance and dirt.

A Roman emperor was once born at Homs, and in Greek times "Emesa" was a city of no little size and importance. The modern town contains some sixty thousand inhabitants, of whom the majority are Moslems. The Christians are nearly all Orthodox Greeks, but there is also a tiny

neath; but the clear air and the difficulty of getting a true perspective had again deceived us. The city lay beyond and lower; what we saw were not houses, but graves. It was a great metropolis of the dead; not hundreds of graves, but thousands and tens of thousands, crowded closely together beneath the fortress that had once been their protection. Some few were fairly large structures, raised in the form of a stone canopy; but the multitude were simple Moslem graves, ranged in long ranks looking toward Mecca, one stone at the head and another at the foot, for the two angels to rest upon as they weigh the good and evil deeds of the dead. This is the order of in

Protestant community. We were guests of the native pastor, and later it lent vividness to our memories of Homs when we learned that our host was stabbed the very week after our departure, though fortunately the wound was not a mortal one. The city is, of course, the market-place of Ard Homs, "The Land of Homs," and its bazaars are crowded with fellahin from all the country around. The chief industry is the making of silks. They claim that there are five thousand looms in the city, and it is easy to believe this statement; for as we walked down the streets, well paved with stone and cleaner than those of many Oriental towns, for whole blocks every

erably more than half drunk. He had neglected to fasten the harness properly, and while we were going down a steep hill, the whole arrangement dropped off one beast and clattered under his heels. Then, as soon as the harness was fixed, the driver dropped his reins under the flying hoofs. He took it all very philosophically, much more so than we did; and doubtless he pitied us Western infidels for our nervousness. Suppose that the coach should really upset, it would be the will of God, and who were we to object!

We had but one fellow traveller, a fat old

The road from Hons to Hama runs almost due north, a straight white line cutting across the green fields. It is one of the oldest routes in the world. Caravans have been passing along it for at least five thousand years, just as we saw them-long strings of slow-moving camels with their bright-colored bags of wheat. One could almost imagine that Pharaoh was again calling down the corn of Hamath to fill his granaries against the seven years of famine. But even here the old things are passing, Just beyond the long line of camels was a longer line of fellah women, their dirty blue

Moslem wearing the green turban of a haj, who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca. He was a very companionable fellow, who insisted upon explaining all the points of interest; and the fact that his explanations were usually wrong did not in the least take from our enjoyment. Every time that the diligence stopped-and this was pretty often our haj would laboriously descend, spread out his handkerchief upon some clean, level spot, and turn toward Mecca to recite his prayers. He must have been a very holy man. I was sorely tempted to photograph him as he painfully bent down his fat old body in its gorgeous robes; but it would have lowered my own self-respect to do so. He was such a polite, genial haj, and just as sincere in his worship as are any of us.

robes kilted above their knees, carrying upon their shoulders baskets of earth and stone for the roadbed of the new French railway. The carriage road is French, too; and a very good road it is. Some men were repairing it with a most ingenious roller. It was a great round stone, drawn by two oxen, and having its axle prolonged by a twenty-foot pole, at the end of which a bare-legged Arab was fastened to balance the whole affair. If the stone had toppled over, the picture of the Arab dangling at the top of the slender flag-staff would have been worth watching.

All along the ride we were reminded of the past. It is a fertile soil; but the very wheat-fields are different from ours. Only a few yards in width, they are often of tremendous length. I hesitate to commit my

self to figures; but it is certain that the thin, green fields would stretch away in the distance until lost over some little elevation. At one place the road was cut through a hill honeycombed with rock tombs, which the haj said were Jewish. Every now and then we passed a tell, or great hemispherical mound, built up of the rubbish of a dozen ruined towns; for even so late as Roman times this was a wellcultivated and populous country. There is now no lumber available for building purposes, and in a number of villages the houses are all built with conical roofs of stone. Where the rock happens to be of a reddish tinge, the houses remind one of nothing so much as a collection of Indian wigwams; where the stone is white, as at Tell el-Biseh, it glitters and sparkles like a fairy city cut out of loaf sugar.

The prophet Amos called it "Hamath the Great," and Hama is still the most important city between Damascus and Aleppo. It is bigger than Homs and seems more prosperous, but the difference between the two is not great enough to prevent considerable jealousy. As in Vienna and Buda Pesth, so in Homs and Hama, the traveller is always being asked to compare the two as to beauty and healthfulness; and it is very convenient if one can conscientiously give the palm to the city last visited. Of course Hama is a very busy place, especially in the morning, when the market-squares are crowded with kneeling camels, and the bazaars are bright with newly opened rolls of rich silks, which can be bought at a ridiculously low price-if the purchaser knows how to bargain.

You can see the same types in other Syrian cities-rough camel-drivers, veiled ladies, ragged fellahin, underfed soldiers, Moslem wise men, and reverend sheikhs. Even in Damascus, however, the picture lacks somewhat of perfection because of the Hotel d'Orient or Hotel Victoria in the background, while just as you have warmed up to enthus asm for the bright scenes of Eastern life, a pert young fellow in French clothes is apt to ask you into his shop or to offer to guide you through the city at ten francs a day. But in Hama, so far as I know, there was no other Frank, only one pair of European trousers, and two men who spoke a little English. There is not even an American missionary; and on VOL. XXXVI.-30

rare occasions when American ladies visit the city, they adopt native costume, veil and all, in order to avoid annoying curiosity.

The citizens of Hama enjoyed us fully as much as we did them. Everywhere we went we were followed by a train of a dozen or two; and when we stopped to look at anything, the crowd threatened to interfere with traffic-not that this would have seemed a serious offence to the Oriental mind. They were so interested in us that I could scarcely get room to use my camera, until my friend would walk a little way off with an intense expression and draw the cortège after him. We know now the feelings of the elephant in the circus parade. Yet the people were not noisy or rude, and I almost hesitate to make such a startling statement about an Oriental city-I do not remember being once asked for backsheesh.

The inhabitants of Hama are commonly supposed to be proud and fanatical. They may be; but we did not find them so. We stayed with a young doctor, a recent graduate of the American college at Beirut; and in the evening a dozen of his friends dropped in to see us. As our own supply of Arabic was not equal to the demands of a long conversation, we essayed a couple of gymnastic tricks, only to be immediately outdone by our Syrian friends. Then the ice was broken and we settled down to a long evening of rough games, which always ended in somebody having his hand slapped with a knotted handkerchief. The fierce-looking men, with their brown, wrinkled faces, entered into it all with such childlike enjoyment that we were soon laughing and shouting as we had not done since the Christmas days of boyhood; and the little brazier, with its bright bed of charcoal that sent fearsome shadows of turbaned heads and long mustachios dancing on the white wall overhead, seemed a natural substitute for the Yule log that was burning in the home over the seas.

The Christians in Hama form a quite insignificant minority, and therefore receive a degree of consideration from their Moslem rulers such as is not granted in cities like Beirut, where the two sects are more nearly balanced, and where jealousy and hatred lead to frequent reprisals. Dr. Taufik told us that some of his warmest