sometimes came forth, for the Essenes disdained marriage, and relied on proselytism for the maintenance of the order.  The rule of the Essenes, however, did not exclude marriage because they believed the end of the world was drawing nigh, but because they wished to exclude all pleasure from life.  To do this, to conceive the duty of man to be a cheerful exclusion of all pleasure, seemed to Joseph wonderful, an exaltation of the spirit that he had not hitherto believed man to be capable of:  and one night, while thinking of these things, he fell on a resolve that he would go to Jericho on the morrow to see for himself if all the tales he heard about the brethren were true.  At the same time he looked forward to getting away from the seven windy hills where the sun had not been seen for days, only grey vapour coiling and uncoiling and going out, and where, with a patter of rain in his ears, he was for many days crouching up to a fire for warmth.

But in Jericho he would be as it were back in Galilee:  a pleasant winter resort, to be reached easily in a day by a path through the hills, so plainly traced by frequent usage that a guide was not needed.  A servant he could not bring with him, for none was permitted in the cenoby, a different mode and colour of life prevailing there from any he ever heard of, but he hoped to range himself to it, and—­thinking how this might be done—­he rode round the hillside, coming soon into view of Bethany over against the desert.  From thence he proceeded by long descents into a land tossed into numberless hills and torn up into such deep valleys that it seemed to him to be a symbol of God’s anger in a moment of great provocation.  Or maybe, he said to himself, these valleys are the ruts of the celestial chariot that passed this way to take Elijah up to heaven?  Or maybe ...  His mind was wandering, and—­forgetful of the subject of his meditation—­he looked round and could see little else but strange shapes of cliffs and boulders, rocks and lofty scarps enwrapped in mist so thick that he fell to thinking whence came the fume?  For rocks are breathless, he said, and there are only rocks here, only rocks and patches of earth in which the peasants sow patches of barley.  At that moment his mule slid in the slime of the path to within a few inches of a precipice, and Joseph uttered a cry before the gulf which startled a few rain-drenched crows that went away cawing, making the silence more melancholy than before.  A few more inches, Joseph thought, and we should have been over, though a mule has never been known to walk or to slide over a precipice.  A moment after, his mule was climbing up a heap of rubble; and when they were at the top Joseph looked over the misted gulf, thinking that if the animal had crossed his legs mule and rider would both be at the bottom of a ravine by now.  And the crows that my cry startled, he said, would soon return, scenting blood.  He rode on, thinking of the three crows, and when he returned to