I have succeeded in obtaining some further particulars in relation to Quarantine.  On the night of our arrival, as we were about getting into our beds, a sudden and horrible gush of brimstone vapor came up stairs, and we all fell to coughing like patients in a pulmonary hospital.  The odor increased till we were obliged to open the windows and sit beside them in order to breathe comfortably.  This was the preparatory fumigation, in order to remove the ranker seeds of plague, after which the milder symptoms will of themselves vanish in the pure air of the place.  Several times a day we are stunned and overwhelmed with the cracked brays of three discordant trumpets, as grating and doleful as the last gasps of a dying donkey.  At first I supposed the object of this was to give a greater agitation to the air, and separate and shake down the noxious exhalations we emit; but since I was informed that the soldiers outside would shoot us in case we attempted to escape, I have concluded that the sound is meant to alarm us, and prevent our approaching too near the walls.  On inquiring of our guardiano whether the wheat growing within the grounds was subject to Quarantine, he informed me that it did not ecovey infection, and that three old geese, who walked out past the guard with impunity, were free to go and come, as they had never been known to have the plague.  Yesterday evening the medical attendant, a Polish physician, came in to inspect us, but he made a very hasty review, looking down on us from the top of a high horse.

Monday, April 19.

Eureka! the whole thing is explained.  Talking to day with the guardiano, he happened to mention that he had been three years in Quarantine, keeping watch over infected travellers.  “What!” said I, “you have been sick three years.”  “Oh no,” he replied; “I have never been sick at all.”  “But are not people sick in Quarantine?” “Stafferillah!” he exclaimed; “they are always in better health than the people outside.”  “What is Quarantine for, then?” I persisted.  “What is it for?” he repeated, with a pause of blank amazement at my ignorance, “why, to get money from the travellers!” Indiscreet guardiano!  It were better to suppose ourselves under suspicion of the plague, than to have such an explanation of the mystery.  Yet, in spite of the unpalatable knowledge, I almost regret that this is our last day in the establishment.  The air is so pure and bracing, the views from our windows so magnificent, the colonized branch of the Beyrout Hotel so comfortable, that I am content to enjoy this pleasant idleness—­the more pleasant since, being involuntary, it is no weight on the conscience.  I look up to the Maronite villages, perched on the slopes of Lebanon, with scarce a wish to climb to them, or turning to the sparkling Mediterranean, view

  “The speronara’s sail of snowy hue
  Whitening and brightening on that field of blue,”

and have none of that unrest which the sight of a vessel in motion suggests.