under the burning Eastern sun and down to the furnace heat of Jericho in the same long woollen cloaks and heavy boots which they wore amid the snows of the Russian winter. They resemble nothing so much as tremendous bears that have somehow got lost and are looking for a convenient snowdrift to burrow in or for a new master who will kindly beat them. But, after all, they are happy on their pilgrimage, and who knows but that they get more out of their visit to the Holy City than do we sophisticated folk who are always wanting to know the why and the wherefore of things! The Russians, like ourselves, are aliens and intruders. Not so the gray-haired Arab who trudges slowly past us, with an ancient flintlock six feet long over his shoulder and a whole arsenal of rusty weapons stuck into his capacious sash. The desert is his by right, since the time of his father Ishmael. He might rob and murder us if occasion arose, but there is no beggar's whine in the voice with which he returns our greeting and wishes us a safe journey. The next wayfarer, however, is another pil grim, a coal-black Abyssinian in a long robe of snowy whiteness. Then we pass a couple of mules carrying grain from the Jordan Valley to Jerusalem. We charge a caravan and send it scurrying over the desert. An Arab shepherd gathers together his flock, so that we can get a good picture of the fat-tailed sheep. Toiling up the hill there comes a gigantic camel, swaying slowly like a heavy laden tramp steamer, and bearing upon his back a deck-house full of giggling women. We stop this "ship of the desert" and exact toll in the shape of a pose before the camera. Moslems are often supposed to object to being photographed, but I have usually found them very complacent subjects. Moslem merchants have again and again put their shops in order and then posed themselves in the midst of their merchandise. I have photographed the interior of mosques in full view of the guards and worshippers, without even being asked for a bakhsheesh. In the present instance the young Arab seems overjoyed at the prospect of having his picture taken, and the At the time of the visit of the German Emperor, this whole road was practically rebuilt, and is now a highway of which any country might be proud; but there are only two houses between Jerusalem and Jericho. Of course these are both khans. The first is not far from Bethany, just across the road from the 'Ain el-Hôd, which is also called the "Apostles' Fountain," because it is quite evident that whenever the Twelve went from Jerusalem to Jericho they must have stopped there to drink. The second khan lies about half-way to Jericho, and is known as "The Inn of the Good Samaritan." Here, too, the name is probably well given; for it is hardly likely that there has ever been any other stopping place near this most dangerous part of the road, and the inn situated here was doubtless the one referred to in the parable. It is a typical khan of the better sort; half stable, half café, and wholly fortress. One side of the square enclosure is taken up by the only gate and three or four rooms for eating and sleeping. Around the other three sides of the court runs a stone wall, different kinds of sherbets, besides melons, grapes, oranges, and unsavory foods cooked in ancient melted butter. A large collection of "antiques" and souvenirs is hung in the south room. The inn-keeper is an American citizen, though Syrian born, and the combination of inherited Semitic business instinct and acquired Yankee shrewdness is such that the Inn of the Good Samaritan will not suffer bankruptcy in our generation. Another name for this inn is the "Red Khan," probably so called from the streaks of red which, at this stage of the journey, are splashed along the brown hillsides. "The Ascent of Blood" was near by, and the thought of blood or redness survives in many local names. The contours of the hills are now less rounded. Sometimes they are jagged, or deeply and regularly chiselled, like the turrets of a fortress. More than once we have pointed out a squared summit which looked like a ruined castle; so when at last we pass the remains of a real stronghold, it is hard to believe that the Castel Rouge is not merely another sculpt ured hill, instead of a grim fortress where once the Crusaders guarded the Jericho road and the Ascent of Blood. After we leave the Inn of the Good Samaritan, the road descends more rapidly than ever, until it seems as if we were going down into the Pit itself. As the quick twilight passes, it casts strange lights and shadows on the wilderness. The pebbly beds of the winter torrents are hidden at the bottom of deep valleys which look like extinct craters, and the hills press around in a shadowy panorama of goblin castles and donjon towers and mysterious, impassable walls. At the left is the chasm of the Wadi el-Kelt; but darkness shrouds its bleak, steep sides, its monkish prison, its inaccessible cavern tombs and the "Brook Cherith" five hundred feet below. Back of this gloomy gorge rises in the distance the darker hulk of the Mount of Temptation, honey-combed with cells where once ascetics told their beads; but now inhabited only by bats and robbers and-so they say-demons! At nightfall the gorge of Cherith seems as dark and unfathomable as that "Where Alph, the sacred river, ran It is a place for dark, creepy legends and ghoulish denizens; a fit home for no human beings but demoniacs or zealots. Indeed, such have always been its inhabitants. And as I have ridden through the wilderness in the night hours, when there was no sign of hut or inn or other human abode; not even a faint gleam along the horizon to tell of a distant village, but only the bare hills rolling away in arid solitude to the black mountains behind, and the clear, starlit sky seeming almost a living thing in comparison with the silent desolation all around; then the thought has come that a man who could live here, month after month and year after year, must become either a madman or a prophet. The uncanny feel of the wilderness is now increased by the fact that it is hot. Even at night it is hot. With a noisy wind blowing over the hill-tops, it is hot. Up at Jerusalem the weather was so cool that it was hardly comfortable to sit out on the housetop after nightfall. This very morning, when we rode out to the Mount of Olives to see the sunrise, we sought the VOL. L.-58 shelter of a great rock which kept off the chilling breeze. But as soon as we entered the wilderness, little puffs of hot air began to come. Before long the desert sirocco was blowing clouds of dust in our faces, and every foot we travelled seemed to bring another degree of heat. I once went to Jericho in midsummer, after the spring tourists had all sailed away from Jaffa and even the inn-keepers had fled from the plain of the Jordan. It was hot then-not warm and sticky and uncomfortable—but HOT! An ordinary thermometer registered 135 degrees in the sun. With a black-bulb instrument we could have done better than that. You need not actually suffer on a two days' trip to Jericho, even in August, but as a summer resort the city has its drawbacks. I have visited Cairo during the hottest month of the year and have spent part of a summer in a tenement in the Suburro Quarter of Rome; but I have yet to meet with anything in the temperate zone quite so hot as a Jericho sirocco. A last steep descent, so steep that we must get out of the carriage and walk behind the tired horses, and then we are down on the flat floor of the valley and the mud walls of Jericho are dimly seen in the starlight. Every lamp is out, and the squalid village is wrapped in hot, malarial sleep. Through the deserted market-place and under the thatched porches the sirocco rushes with the roar of a Dakota blizzard and the heat of a blast furnace. The shady garden of the hotel looks very dark and inviting, and the breeze in the tree-tops has a most refreshing sound; but we wander from garden to court and from bedroom to housetop in a vain search for a breath of air which is not hot and stifling. Then we try to eat a tasteless supper under the dusty green bower. After experimenting with lukewarm water and sickening bottled stuff, we find that boiling hot tea is the only drink that will somewhat assuage our thirst. One of our party has a copy of Omar Khayyam, whose cynical quatrains just fit our present mood. Somewhere in the court our servant unearths a couple of old English magazines which, strangely enough, are full of tantalizing accounts of Alpine ascents and sufferings from Arctic cold. At last we drop down on couches and rocking-chairs in the parlor of the lonely hotel and fall into a fitful slum ber which must be broken at three o'clock in the morning, for we are to visit the Jordan and the Dead Sea before another blazing sunrise. In the memory of him who has gone down from Jerusalem to Jericho, one object stands very clear. Turn where he will, conjure up what panorama he choose, and high in the distant background is a thin, black line, like a seal set upon the picture by its painter. A score of times, out among the rocks and thorn-bushes of the desert, a sudden turn of the road has brought again into view this slender tower which watches inscrutably from above. In the midst of solitude and desolation, where the brown mountains blot out every minaret of the Holy City, there is that tall, slim tower, peering silently over the crest of some distant hill, like a light-house without a light or an inaccessible haven of refuge. When the pilgrim stands by the salt driftwood which is scattered along the shore of the Dead Sea, he is all alone, save for that column which rises three-quarters of a mile above him; and through every vista between the shrubs which line the western bank of Jordan, the narrow profile of that distant tower stands black against the blue Judean sky. If some day another Moses shall stand above the cliffs of Moab and look across the wilderness to the fertile slopes of central Palestine, he will not be able to see the Holy City. The rolling hills will conceal from his view the Mosque of Omar and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The German Church, too, and the American Consulate, the English Hospital, the Moravian Leper Asylum, and the Jewish colonies of Baron Rothschild will all be hidden by the mountains round about Jerusalem. But, outlined clear against the sky, with a message of welcome or of challenge, the watcher from Pisgah's summit will see the tower of the Russian monastery on the Mount of Olives. A PRAYER By Laurence C. Hodgson O GOD of Love! make me of love, that I I who have dared to breathe Her name must be O may my life forget all other things AN IMPRESSION OF CORONATION WEEK By Mary King Waddington CONDON is perhaps attractive in a certain way these days. There are so many people everywhere, all with a happy and expectant look, enjoying beforehand the sights of the wonderful two days; but it is certainly not picturesque. Almost all the houses on the route of the cortege are still encased in wooden scaffoldings; there are armies of workmen putting up shields, draperies, and seats, a great noise of hammers and an incessant rumbling of heavy vans filled with poles, benches, green wreaths, flags, bundles of red stuff, gold fringe, long red cushions, gold crowns-all the paraphernalia that comes into the light when a great fête is being prepared. Circulation is very difficult. The crowd seems to be everywhere. We went out the other day in the carriage, but that was hopeless. We got wedged into a tight jam of omnibuses and motors; the horses got frightened and restive, gave little jumps forward every now and then, which were anything but pleasant for the occupants of the carriage. We had thought of going down to the Abbey to see the door by which I was to go in, but I very soon gave up that idea, and we never got beyond the foot of St. James Street. Royal carriages with servants in scarlet liveries, and often men in uniform inside, were dashing about in every direction, and there seemed a permanent red carpet down at Victoria Station. At some of the big houses, one just near us in Grosvenor Square, a sentry box was established on the pavement, and a tall grenadier pacing up and down, which always means that royalties inhabit the house. Some people put their houses at the disposal of the court, and left London, going to the country or to the Continent, but some remained and did the honors themselves to their guests. The list of princes is bewilderingly long. One can only remember the most prominent ones. The shops are very gay; everything "coronation"-fans, scarfs, chains, china mugs, cushions, screens-all with pictures of the King and Queen, and feathers and veils arranged for the head for the great ceremony at the Abbey. All the ladies wear court dress, which necessitates white feathers and veils, but not the long train. I think there are a number of strangers, a few French, Americans in quantities, all wanting to get into the Abbey, and all thinking they have a perfect right to be there. I should think the American Ambassador must be almost crazy. If there are places reserved for distinguished strangers, how difficult the choice must be! To-day, Wednesday, the city looks quite festive. All the scaffoldings are down and the red seats and draperies make a great effect. Constitution Hill has a long line of red seats rising in tiers, one above the other, all the way from the arch to the palace. The fine old trees behind make a beautiful background. Some of the decorations, too, in Piccadilly are charming. Devonshire House is very striking-no red, which is the prevailing color, blue draperies fringed with gold, and festoons and branches of natural flowers, yellow and white. The BurdettCoutts house, too, where I think the American Special Mission is staying, had a trellis of red roses all over the façade. Flags, of course, everywhere-shields and crowns, pictures of the King and Queen, and many inscriptions-"God bless our King and Queen"-"God bless King George❞—but I did not see so many quaint ones as at King Edward's coronation. I remember such a nice old-fashioned one, near Westminster: "God's angels guard your sacred throne, and may you well become it." Flags make the best decoration. I drove through Baker Street last night, which was brilliant with flags and lanterns and festoons of greens and flowers waving over our heads. It is not on the line of the procession, but every one seems to want to make a demonstration of some kind and take part in the glories of the coronation. Circulation was very difficult to-day, Piccadilly a curiosity. Every description of vehicle, |