the wall entered the hotel.  We stood in a great flagged court, with flowers and citron trees about us, and a huge tank in the centre that was receiving the waters of many pipes.  We crossed the court and entered the rooms prepared to receive four of us.  In a large marble-paved recess between the two rooms was a tank of clear, cool water, which was kept running over all the time by the streams that were pouring into it from half a dozen pipes.  Nothing, in this scorching, desolate land could look so refreshing as this pure water flashing in the lamp-light; nothing could look so beautiful, nothing could sound so delicious as this mimic rain to ears long unaccustomed to sounds of such a nature.  Our rooms were large, comfortably furnished, and even had their floors clothed with soft, cheerful-tinted carpets.  It was a pleasant thing to see a carpet again, for if there is any thing drearier than the tomb-like, stone-paved parlors and bed-rooms of Europe and Asia, I do not know what it is.  They make one think of the grave all the time.  A very broad, gaily caparisoned divan, some twelve or fourteen feet long, extended across one side of each room, and opposite were single beds with spring mattresses.  There were great looking-glasses and marble-top tables.  All this luxury was as grateful to systems and senses worn out with an exhausting day’s travel, as it was unexpected—­for one can not tell what to expect in a Turkish city of even a quarter of a million inhabitants.

I do not know, but I think they used that tank between the rooms to draw drinking water from; that did not occur to me, however, until I had dipped my baking head far down into its cool depths.  I thought of it then, and superb as the bath was, I was sorry I had taken it, and was about to go and explain to the landlord.  But a finely curled and scented poodle dog frisked up and nipped the calf of my leg just then, and before I had time to think, I had soused him to the bottom of the tank, and when I saw a servant coming with a pitcher I went off and left the pup trying to climb out and not succeeding very well.  Satisfied revenge was all I needed to make me perfectly happy, and when I walked in to supper that first night in Damascus I was in that condition.  We lay on those divans a long time, after supper, smoking narghilies and long-stemmed chibouks, and talking about the dreadful ride of the day, and I knew then what I had sometimes known before—­that it is worth while to get tired out, because one so enjoys resting afterward.

In the morning we sent for donkeys.  It is worthy of note that we had to send for these things.  I said Damascus was an old fossil, and she is.  Any where else we would have been assailed by a clamorous army of donkey-drivers, guides, peddlers and beggars—­but in Damascus they so hate the very sight of a foreign Christian that they want no intercourse whatever with him; only a year or two ago, his person was not always safe in Damascus streets.  It is the most fanatical