This morning dawned clear and beautiful.  Lebanon, except his snowy crest, was wrapped in the early shadows, but the Mediterranean gleamed like a shield of sapphire, and Beyrout, sculptured against the background of its mulberry groves, was glorified beyond all other cities.  The turf around our pavilion fairly blazed with the splendor of the yellow daisies and crimson poppies that stud it.  I was satisfied with what I saw, and felt no wish to leave Quarantine to-day.  Our Italian friend, however, is more impatient.  His betrothed came early to see him, and we were edified by the great alacrity with which he hastened to the grate, to renew his vows at two yards’ distance from her.  In the meantime, I went down to the Turkish houses, to cultivate the acquaintance of a singular character I met on board the steamer.  He is a negro of six feet four, dressed in a long scarlet robe.  His name is Mahommed Senoosee, and he is a fakeer, or holy man, from Timbuctoo.  He has been two years absent from home, on a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, and is now on his way to Jerusalem and Damascus.  He has travelled extensively in all parts of Central Africa, from Dar-Fur to Ashantee, and professes to be on good terms with the Sultans of Houssa and Bornou.  He has even been in the great kingdom of Waday, which has never been explored by Europeans, and as far south as Iola, the capital of Adamowa.  Of the correctness of his narrations I have not the least doubt, as they correspond geographically with all that we know of the interior of Africa.  In answer to my question whether a European might safely make the same tour, he replied that there would be no difficulty, provided he was accompanied by a native, and he offered to take me even to Timbuctoo, if I would return with him.  He was very curious to obtain information about America, and made notes of all that I told him, in the quaint character used by the Mughrebbins, or Arabs of the West, which has considerable resemblance to the ancient Cufic.  He wishes to join company with me for the journey to Jerusalem, and perhaps I shall accept him.

Sunday, April 18.

As Quarantine is a sort of limbo, without the pale of civilized society, we have no church service to-day.  We have done the best we could, however, in sending one of the outside dragomen to purchase a Bible, in which we succeeded.  He brought us a very handsome copy, printed by the American Bible Society in New York.  I tried vainly in Cairo and Alexandria to find a missionary who would supply my heathenish destitution of the Sacred Writings; for I had reached the East through Austria, where they are prohibited, and to travel through Palestine without them, would be like sailing without pilot or compass.  It gives a most impressive reality to Solomon’s “house of the forest of Lebanon,” when you can look up from the page to those very forests and those grand mountains, “excellent with the cedars.”  Seeing the holy man of Timbuctoo praying with his face