and was now taking her to Mossoul to make her his wife. I was disposed to believe him, for he treated her with kindness all the way, and gave her the best morsel to eat, and spake gently to her when she was weary. She had no friend but him in the wide world. Father and mother, brothers and sisters were all gone; and he, a stranger, had taken her to him, to protect and comfort her. Sweet everywhere in this sorrowing world is it to see the kindlier sympathies of man's nature in exercise, but nowhere more sweet than in the desert, and among rude and barbarous men. The girl, too, was modest and well-looking. She rode apart from the company with her companion, and carefully concealed her face from the gaze of others. I thought it was also a redeeming trait in the rough character of our guards, that they did not attempt to intrude upon their comrade, but left him with his charge to pursue their way as they pleased.

It was one dreadful feature of the famine that had lately depopulated the villages, that it dissolved the ties of nature, kindred and morality. Parents sold their daughters for a morsel of food, and girls who had lost their parents sold themselves for nothing to any body who would support them. During the whole of these distressing scenes, the Turkish Governors seem never to have dreamed that they had any interest or concern in relieving the wants of their starving people. I thought of appealing to the fat Pasha of Diarbekir, a monster of a man, whose circumference was equal to his longitude, but every one told me that it would be useless, so I desisted. In fact, the Turks seemed to think it a good opportunity to get rid of bad subjects, and it was vain to urge the claims of humanity against their peculiar views of state policy.

After a sleepless day at Nisibin, we travelled all night over the desert, crossing before midnight three little streams, from one of which we frightened a herd of wild hogs, that scampered away in the dark, while into another we only escaped,

by the superior instinct of our horses, from plunging ourselves. Before 1 A. M. we judged by the baying of dogs that we were passing near some village, and soon after, we came upon a field of barley, ready for the sickle. Here our guide ordered a halt, and every man excepting myself dismounted, and coolly taking off his horse's bridle, let him loose into the barley. I pleaded, remonstrated, and, as one must sometimes do with Easterns, stormed, in vain. The guards coolly replied that the horses would not eat enough to make the difference perceptible. I remained some time upon my horse, heartily wishing that the dogs would come after us. But their barking sounded no nearer, and at last ceased, when the guards quietly laid themselves down and went to sleep. Seeing resistance useless, I dismounted also, and gave my horse to the muleteer, who quickly set him to work with the others. According to our contract, he was to provide fodder, and he would not allow me to dictate to him the mode of doing it. I laid down upon the ground, but was so vexed that I could not sleep; so I consoled myself as well as I could, with eating bread and cheese. After an hour I walked over the ground. There was hardly a stalk of barley left standing. Thirty hungry horses had been employed upon it for an hour. What had not been consumed, was trodden down. I thought of the dismay of the poor villagers when they should come to look after their harvest; and yet a kind Providence, that watches over all, had permitted us to come and destroy the hard-earned produce of their toil. I called up the guards, and pointed to the very "perceptible difference" that we had made in the appearance of the field. The only conclusion which they drew from it was that their horses had had enough. I had thought that they would be frightened when they saw what they had done, but they appeared so cool about it that I began to suspect that the villagers who owned the field were Christians. There are some Syrians in this part of the desert.

We were following no path, and were therefore obliged to trust solely to the sagacity of the guide. I know not how he calculated, but I kept my eye ever and anon upon the stars, fixing the cardinal points by the polar constellation. Judging from that faithful monitor, whose presence, with that of all his sister constellations, has often in the long weary nights been to me society, our course was by no means straight forward. Without any imaginable cause, our guide led us hither and thither, to the right and the left, the north and the .south. Perhaps he was asleep. I told him we were wrong, but he was the guide and could do as he pleased. When morning broke, he looked round after the tels, or mounds,' and professed to guide us by them. His business was to lead us to water, but he went to sleep, and his horse went on, and continued for some time to perform the duties of his master before we discovered under what guidance we were. He, the master, was evidently bewildered, and kept us wandering to and fro with the hope of finding water somewhere. At length he brought us to a lake, whose waters were saline and undrinkable. The water had receded, and left a strong mineral deposit on the shore. All around were tracks of wild hogs, and a few birds were there. All the rest was barren, cheerless desert, covered with dry, yellow, prickly shrubs, scorched and baked by the sun. We stopped here two hours, for no other purpose that I could discover, but to look at the lake and wish that we could drink of it. When we approached it, the guide declared it was the very water he was looking for, which agreeable announcement had induced the muleteer to throw off his loads, and when this was done, it was hard to persuade him that we were

1 The desert is dotted in different places with these singular mounds, which appear to be artificial.

not encamped for some hours. But the terrible heat, which seemed to come down with tenfold intensity upon the light soil and white deposit about the lake, and the impatience of the horses for the water which they could not drink, sickened us all of the thought of staying there till evening. Indeed, it was only a little less evil to move than to stay, for the sun poured such merciless rays upon us that it was hard to bear them any where.

CHAPTER XI.

Encampment at Night.-Boar Chase.-Repast.-Night March.-Search for Water. The Sinjar Mountains.-Conflagration.-Sudden Departure. The Gazelle.-Robber's Watch Height-Camel caught.-Road lost.-Peasants.-Their Timidity.-Its Cause.-Abou Maria.-Retrospect.-Last Day.-Reception in a Skeikh's Tent.-Reach the Tigris.-A Nap.-The City.

We left our encampment by the lake, and after various meanderings and turnings, came at length, perfectly exhausted, to a little pool of water which the rushes had kept from drying up. It was all that remained of the spring rains, and a few more days would have sufficed for its disappearance. We sat by it for a time after quenching our thirst, and felt it to be a real luxury to repose in the green fresh grass on the edge of it. We were loth to leave it, but our way was long, and we were compelled to travel yet farther in order rightly to divide our stages. So we started again, and in about an hour came to the water which the guide had been in quest of, and which was a little stream running down from Haznaour on the road from Nisibin to Mossoul. It ran in a deep gully which it had worn in the soil, and, though narrow and insignificant in appearance, was not easily approached with our heavy baggage horses nor easily forded. We succeeded, however, in crossing it, and in two and a quarter hours more, came to a green spot where there seemed to be both grass and water. The one necessity was as great as the other, for the muleteer, reckoning upon finding grass, had