WE sailed from Smyrna on a cloudless and perfect day. Indeed, in the months of September and October the climate on the Mediterranean Coast of Asia is all that the traveler could ask. The sky seldom is hidden by a cloud; the winds are gentle and the smoothness of the sea hardly disturbed by a ripple; and the temperature is that delightful mean when one is never oppressed by heat, nor shivers with cold. There continues an unbroken stretch of delightful weather until the time of the rainy season draws nigh.

      When we sailed out between the headlands which guard the mouth of the gulf of Smyrna, we glided into seas, along coasts, and among islands of which poets have sung, where great events of ancient history were wrought, and where often the Apostle Paul sailed and labored in his wonderful career. In an hour or two we passed on the left, at the foot of the blue mountains, and apparently in the edge of the sea, the ruins of Miletus, once a famous city, but now a lonely ruin, in the midst of a marsh. When Paul was on his last journey to Jerusalem he landed here, and sent to the elders of the church at Ephesus, which great city was not [42] very far distant, to come to meet him. The account of this meeting between the great apostle and the elders of a church which he had planted, and where he labored for three years, is very

RUINS AT MILETUS.

touching. You will find it in the twentieth chapter of Acts.

      But what island is this on our left that we are passing as the sun is setting? Mr. Crunden replies: "That is Patmos." Patmos! The prison-house of the last of the apostles, the scene of the wonderful visions of the Book of Revelation! With what eager eyes we gaze upon it as we pass by! We see only a rocky island, made up of bare mountains and valleys, much like the rest of [43] the islands in this sea, but this one is forever sacred to the Christian as the place where the glorified Savior once more revealed himself and made his last revelation to our race.

      We were out on deck with the morning sun, and found that our course had been turned in the night from the south to the east. We had "doubled" the southwestern cape of Asia Minor, once a part of the kingdom of Caria, whose queen built so splendid a tomb to contain the dead body of her husband, Mausolus, that ever since such tombs have been called Mausoleums, and were now sailing between the Island of Rhodes and the mainland. This island had a great interest for us, not only on account of its history, but because it had given a name to the smallest State of the American Union. The early explorers fancied that the island on which Newport stands, which forms a considerable part of the little State, resembled the island of Rhodes, and hence named it Rhode Island. The city of Rhodes, near which we sailed, without stopping, was very famous in Grecian times. Its Colossus, which stood over its harbor, was counted one of the seven wonders of the world. No part of its history is more interesting than the period of two hundred years in which it was held by the Knights of St. John, a body of Crusading Knights which had been famous in the Palestine wars, but were driven out of the Holy Land by the Mohammedans in A.D. 1399. They [44] then mastered the island of Rhodes and for two centuries carried on from this center heroic wars against the Turks. At last, in 1522, Solyman the Magnificent, one of the greatest of the Turkish Sultans, landed on the island with a great army of 200,000 soldiers. The Knight has only 6,000 soldiers in all to oppose, but they made a brave defense that lasted nearly a year and cost the Turks ten times as many lives as there were defenders. Then, when their walls had been beaten almost into dust, and they had still repelled every attempt of the Turks to storm them, the survivors were permitted to sail away in peace, if they would only leave the island. It was one of the most remarkable sieges in history. All day long we sailed to the east through the Bay of Pamphylia and the Sea of Cilicia. These bodies of water were tracked, again and again, by the ships that carried the Apostle Paul in his missionary journeys. The great chain of mountains, called the Cilician Taurus, with their lofty crest white with eternal snows, were almost always in sight. In the afternoon the Island of Cyprus appeared in the distance, resembling a dark cloud hanging over the sea, and for a hundred miles our path was midway between it and the coast of the ancient kingdom of Cilicia. It is not far from sunset when we sailed into the habor of Mersina, a seaport on the coast of Cilicia, and cast anchor about one and half miles from shore. [45] The boys, David and Will and Bayard, had been reading up as we steered between Cyprus and Cilicia, and were ready to stand an examination on this part of the world. They knew that Cilicia was an ancient kingdom; that it became a part of Alexander's great empire, and then a Roman province. They could answer that Tarsus was its capital, and that it "was no mean city," but a center of ancient schools and Greek learning. They would hardly stop to speak of these things, however, in their eagerness to mention the fact of its history which gives it the greatest interest to the world; namely, that it was the home of the Apostle Paul when he was a boy.

      "Well, here is the country of Cilicia," they said, "but the place of all others which we would like to see is Tarsus. How far is it distant? and can we arrange in any way to visit it while we stop here?"

      The obliging captain of the French steamer on which we were sailing was ready to answer all our questions. It was only about eighteen miles to Tarsus. He would remain in the harbor of Mersina until four o'clock the next evening to take on cotton-bales and grain, but if we wished to go to Tarsus he would postpone his sailing hour until ten o'clock at night to give us the opportunity. [46] A Turkish railroad ran back from Mersina into the country, and we could go on the morning train to a point only three miles from Tarsus, and return in the evening so as to reach his ship a little after dark. This was good tidings. So we arranged with the steward to call us at five o'clock, give us an early breakfast, and let us devote the day to the journey.

      We were up with the sun in the morning, drank our coffee, and a little after sunrise were in the boats in high spirits and pulling for the shore. The sight was one to stir up our highest interest. Around us were the smooth waters of the deep blue sea, lighted up by the slant rays of the early sun. In front was the great Cilician plain with the curious Oriental town of Mersina in the foreground, with its domes and minarets, while in the background was a great mountain range, crested with a snowy crown, extending for hundred of miles in an east and west line parallel to the shore of the sea. This great range is the one of which I spoke before and said that it was called the "Cilician Taurus." It is so lofty that the snow on the mountain tops never melts. In most places it cannot be crossed, but near Tarsus there is an opening in the chain called the "Cilician Gates," through which armies have marched and the people of Western Asia have kept up intercourse with the East for thousands of years.

      As soon as we landed we seemed to plunge into [47] the very heart of Asia. Not a person dressed in American and European style could be seen except those in our party. Some were savage-looking Turks with the fez upon their heads, baggy trousers, and great crooked swords at their sides, as ugly and dangerous-looking as the pictures that you have seen in the books. Others had a shawl wrapped about their heads, which they call a Kefieh, and wore a long gown reaching below the knees, but had no trousers at all. The men were all bearded, and the women that we saw on the street had their faces covered with heavy veils. Some were ragged, some were very dirty, all had a strange look, and gazed upon us as if we were a procession of wild animals. The street along which we walked was not more than ten feet wide, and was crowded with men, camels and donkeys mingled in strange confusion. For hundreds of miles the products of the country are carried to Mersina on the backs of donkeys and camels in order to be sent by ships to other parts of the world, a fact that explains why we saw so many in the narrow, dirty street along which we walked.

      We found that we had time before the train started to visit the Kahn, the great Caravanserai, where the merchants, camel-drivers, camels and donkeys which bring the country products, find a stopping-place. The Kahn is what is called an inn in the Scriptures, and is still very much the same as in New Testament times. We enter by a [48] gate and find an open yard with a great watering-trough, fenced in on every side by the buildings. The first story of the buildings is a shed with feeding-troughs for the beasts and shelter for the good. The upper story has unfurnished rooms which the traveler can hire, spread his bed in and eat the food that his servant provides. The servants generally sleep below among the beasts. It was an inn very much like this, I suppose, in which Jesus was born at Bethlehem, only Joseph and Mary did not take a room, but had to remain below where the beasts were fed. It was in the feeding-trough that the shepherds found the Child of which the angel told them.

      But now the train whistles, and we roll away over the level plain; through the cotton-fields, where hundreds of pickers, men, women and children, are at work; through the pastures where we see more cattle and sheep than we have seen before in Asia; along the great highway where the caravans are slowly moving towards the sea from the interior; among ruined castles, of which the boys were anxious to know the history; drawing nearer the great white white-capped mountains which the boys were eager to try to climb if they only had the time; until in about an hour from the time of starting we paused at the station of Tarsous, the birthplace and early home of Saul of Tarsus, which was still a few miles distant. We eagerly looked around. [49]

      "Well, what do you think of it?" asked David.

      "I think I would not object much to being born and brought up in such a country as this," was the prompt reply of Will. "Just look at those mountains! See these brooks and running streams! See how green and fresh the country looks which they water, and the great orchards with their fruit! Yonder is a water-melon patch as sure as I am alive, and I judge that those great melons that I now see are ripe."

THE CITY OF TARSUS.

      Indeed the sight was enchanting. The mountain chain back of Tarsus is 13,000 feet high, and the river Cyndus, fed by the melting snows, comes rushing down to water the plain, and is led off into a thousand channels, converting the country into a luxuriant paradise. Everywhere we see the groves of oranges, lemons, figs and mulberry, with the blooming garden, and hear the music of the running waters. It is in the midst of this sea of luxuriance that the city of Tarsus lies buried, like a fair lady clothed in emerald green. To it we hurried as soon as we had [50] found means of conveyance, and in a short time we were threading the narrow streets of the ancient city where the little Saul had so often walked or played.

      It is said that Tarsus had once a hundred thousand people. It now has, when its winter population gathers, for many go to the uplands in the summer, about twenty thousand. The houses are almost all of stone, are one story high, and do not look like inviting abodes. Indeed, I fancy that the city has changed greatly for the worse since the time of Paul. It has belonged to the Turks for many centuries, and a Turkish population care very little for beauty or for cleanliness. The streets are very narrow, very dirty, and so odorous that we had often to hold our noses, and were crowded with donkeys, camels, cows, sheep, goats and men promiscuously mixed up together.

      Wood for fuel is scarce here and has to be brought a long distance from defiles in the mountains. The people have got in the way of using the dried "chips" of their cattle for this purpose, just as frontiersmen used to use buffalo "chips" on our western plains. In order to dry them out they take them when fresh and plaster them on the street walls of their stone houses. I passed along streets where the walls for many yards were plastered with this repulsive and ill-smelling kind of stucco.

      It was market-day, and the population from the [51] country around were in the city with their fat sheep, goats, donkeys, fruits, vegetables, wood, sugar-cane and ragged children; all chaffering, selling, buying, bartering, and an indescribable din and confusion of screaming children, shouting men and braying donkeys. Still it was a sight worth seeing to have a look at the country population.

      There were some points of interest in the city of which the boys had read, and which they wished to see. Hence, we asked to be guided at once clear through the place to the banks of the river Cyndus. We were led to the Falls, where the water tumbles over a ledge of rocks and leaps down about forty feet. Of this place we had heard long before. It was just below these falls that Alexander the Great, while engaged in the conquest of Persia, took a bath when he was heated, and caught such a chill that for three days his officers thought that he would die. It was at this river that Mark Antony, the great Roman Triumvir, first met the bad and beautiful Queen of Egypt, who was his ruin. She sailed up the Cyndus to Tarsus, where he had his court, in a ship with silken sails, attired herself as a Venus, and was surrounded by nymphs and naiads. She so charmed him that he lost his heart, the world, and his life for her. Here at these falls a little Jewish boy, about nineteen hundred years ago, [52] often came to play and to bathe, answering, when the other boys called, to the name of Saul.

      Then from this place we went to see a very old church, which stands on the foundations of a much older synagogue, that is said to have been the synagogue in which Saul worshipped when a boy, and went to school. There is good reason to believe that this account is correct. Then we were shown show other places that we could not estimate quite so highly as the people of Tarsus do. One was a Mohammedan mosque in which they showed us the tomb of Daniel the Prophet! This story the boys listened to with an incredulous air, for Daniel died many hundreds of miles from here in Babylon.

      After spending six or seven hours in this curious city, we passed out through the old gate of the ancient wall, found our way back to the station, where we lunched on melons and grapes which were brought to us from the gardens of Tarsus. About four o'clock P.M. we started back, slowly leaving behind us the paradise of green and golden fruits, of silver streams and luxuriant foliage. We saw the shadows gather around the giant mountains until they seemed to become a dense, black, impenetrable wall towering to the sky, and reached the port of Mersina as the darkness gathered. An hour later, almost as ravenous as wolves, we were eating our belated dinner on shipboard, delighted with the incidents of the day. [53]

      On the night that followed our visit to Tarsus we went to sleep on our good ship, the Sindh, in the harbor of Mersina. Whenever we awaked during the darkness we were made aware that we were in motion; when the light of morning dawned our vessel was once more still, and we knew that we had cast anchor at some new port. As soon as I could dress I hurried out on deck, and saw that we were moored about a mile from shore. A town on considerable size was nestled along the water's edge and extended towards a mountain chain which seemed to rise very abruptly about a mile from the sea back of the town, but to crowd down almost to the water both to the north and the south of where we were anchored. I had not much more than taken a survey when the boys came hurrying up, anxious to see where we were, and as usual, full of questions. I was not able to answer all their inquiries, but one of the polite French officers supplied what was wanting.

      He said that we were in the harbor of Alexandretta, as the place was usually called, though the Turks called it Skanderoon. The sheet of water, half surrounded by land, over which we had sailed in the night, was the Bay of Issus, this gulf being the extreme northeastern portion of that part of the Mediterranean Sea which is called the sea of Cilicia. [54]

      "The Bay of Issus!" exclaimed Will. "Then it must be somewhere near here that Alexander the Great fought the battle of Issus, which really decided the fate of the Persian Empire. I remember that King Darius commanded the Persians, that we was completely defeated, and that even his mother and wife were taken prisoners. Can we see the place where the battle was fought?"

      "Yes, you can see it easily," was the reply. "Look along the coast to the north. You see that the mountains, which abreast of us come down so close to the sea, recede a few miles north and leave a narrow plain. That is the Plain of Issus. It is so narrow that although Darius had 600,000 men, while Alexander had no a tenth as many, he could bring only a small part of his army into action at once, and hence his great numbers were of no advantage. The Macedonian Phalanx bore down all opposers where it marched, and it stretched out from the sea of the mountain base, so that it could not be surrounded."

      "What mountains are those?" asked David.

      "Those are called the Amanus Mountains by Europeans, but the Turks call them the Alma Dagh. They are a part of the same chain that you saw back of Tarsus, but they are called there the Cilician Taurus. Farther south you will see the same range under the name of Lebanon. There are breaks in the chain made by valleys and rivers, but under different names it stretches [55] east and west in Cilicia and then south along the coast in Syria, for five hundred miles."

      "How high are those mountains?" said Bayard.

      "They vary greatly. Some of the peaks of the Taurus are 13,000 feet high. You saw yesterday that they were covered with snow. Mount Amanus is about 6,000 feet. One of the peaks of the Lebanon is 10,400 feet high."

      "It cannot be very far from here to Antioch, I think," said I. "Do you know the distance?"

      "It is only twenty-three miles. Do you see where that opening in the mountain stretches out just back of the town. Through that runs the great road to Aleppo, which lies about seventy-five miles back, and uses Alexandretta as its seaport. If one follows that road a few miles east, and then turns to the south, he can ride to Antioch in about eight hours."

      "How long will your ship stop here!" we all exclaimed together. "Will it be possible for us to visit Antioch? We would so much like to visit a city so famous in the early history of the Church."

      "We will stop here for two days. We have a large quantity of goods for Aleppo, and also much loading to take in its place. Aleppo has 150,000 people, and we always have a great deal of business here for that city. You have plenty of time to go out to Antioch and return, if you can get riding horses ashore, a guide, and an escort." [56]

      It would not do to lose such a change, which would probably never come again. So, as soon as breakfast was dispatched, a party of more than a dozen were rowed ashore. Our conductor, Mr. Crunden, who spoke both Turkish and Arabic fluently, came along with us to make arrangements. As we drew near the landing we same some large warehouses with a flag floating over them. To our surprise and joy it was the bonny blue flag of our country, the glorious Stars and Stripes. As soon as we stepped on land we hurried to the building to find out what this meant. We were met at the door by a gentleman about fifty years old, in European dress, who returned our greetings in English. His name was Walker. He was an American, born in Stamford, Conn., and had been twenty-four years in this part of the world. He was the agent of a firm in the United States engaged in the manufacture of licorice gum. The licorice root grows wild over this part of the country, is dug by the natives, dried and brought in on camels from a distance of hundreds of miles. It is then pressed into bales by powerful steam machinery, and shipped to America. He said that he sent about one shipload a month, and indeed one sailed while we were at Alexandretta. He had an American wife, and grown up children, who were Americans, but had never seen America.

      He was very glad to see us, and was very glad to give us aid and advice. By his assistance we [57] soon got together the horses needed, two or three pack mules with necessaries, a dragoman who was well-acquainted with the country, and a couple of Turkish soldiers for an escort. Mr. Walker said that this was best, as some Circassian bandits were lurking in the mountains, and often attacked unprotected travelers. The presence of a soldier or two would be a safeguard against trouble. The soldiers were very glad to go, for the Turkish Government gives them very poor food and pay, and they would be sure of what seemed to them high living and big pay while with us.

      It was nine o'clock by the time that we were mounted. Our horses, gathered in so hurried a manner, were not all the beasts, and our Turkish saddles were not entirely comfortable to an American rider, but we had ardor enough to make light of all hindrances and discomforts, and were soon moving east through a pass in the Mount Amanus chain, on the road to Aleppo. The road was steep in place, but a moderately good one, as there has been some effort of late years to make a wagon road to Aleppo. Riding up to Mr. Crunden, our London conductor, I said to him:

      "I have seen some accounts of an English scheme to build a railroad from Alexandretta to the Euphrates, and from thence down the river to the Persian Gulf, so as to form a quite route to India. Is it the design to run it through this pass?" [58]

      "It is," he replied, "if it is every built. Thus far the imbecile Turkish Government has hindered the project. It would start at Skanderoon (Alexandretta), run east to the Euphrates, which is only a hundred miles from here at this point, and thence down its valley to Bagdad. It will be built sometime, because England must have it, but no one can tell how soon."

      "This place we have just left seems to have two names," said Will. "Why is it call Alexandretta?"

      "Because Alexander the Great founded it just after the battle of Issus. Before he marched further he had to make a base of supplies. Hence he improved the harbor and made it the port by which he kept up communications with Greece. The Turkish name of Alexander is Iskander. Hence the name Iskanderoon, or Skanderoon for sort, means the same as Alexandretta. But see! the dragoman is turning us off from the Aleppo road."

      He had turned his course up a valley that came in from the south, and as we rode in that direction our path became more and more rugged. It was often very narrow and steep, and often, too, the stones had rolled down and so filled it that our horses had hard work to clamber over them. They spoke of this as "the road to Antioch," but it was more like an Indian trail among the Rocky mountains, than like a road in a civilized country. [59] The mountain region through which we passed seemed almost destitute of people, and it was only at long intervals that we met a group of the natives with laden donkeys, on their way to the port. They had a kind of turban on their heads and wore nothing beside but shirts that reached

THE CITY OF ANTIOCH IN SYRIA.

to their knees, leaving their legs bare. On their feet were sandals, tied with leather straps. All had muskets swung over their shoulders. About one o'clock we reached the top of the ridge up which we had long been climbing, and suddenly a magnificent view spread out before us. At the base of the descent there opened out a great [60] valley, dotted here and there with green groves, and coursing its meandering way through it, we could trace the shining current of a river, reflecting brightly the rays of the sun. Beyond it were high mountains, through which it seemed to have cleft its way from the south. Just opposite us it ran to the west, and then again it bent to the southwest and rushed down to the sea.

      "The Orontes! The Orontes!" was the cry. We were looking on the great Syrian river so famous in all history. It rises in the Lebanon, not far from the sources of the Jordan and the Leontes, running north, while they descend in the other direction. On its banks stood many ancient cities, but of these by far the most famous was ANTIOCH.

      "Ah! I see the city. There it is!" exclaimed David eagerly, pointing to a small town with low white houses and minarets, just beyond the river, apparently only a few miles away.

      "Yes; that is Antioch," said Mr. Crunden. "The people now call it Antikieh. It has only five or six thousand inhabitants now, but it was surrounded by great ruined walls, and the remains of the aqueducts show that it once must have been immense. It is supposed to have had 500,000 inhabitants when Paul and Barnabas made it their center of missionary work."

      "We were all eager to hurry on. After a short lunch we were in the saddle again and descending. [61] As we drew nearer we began to observe the heaps and ruined walls which showed where the city once stood. Anciently it was on each side of the river, but the modern town is all on the south. The valley was planted with fruit and mulberry trees, watered either by springs or from the Orontes, seemed to be about five or six miles wide and was visible for a length of abut ten miles. It was about 5 P.M., when we reached the river and rode across on an old stone bridge which used to be called "the Iron Bridge," because it had iron gates at each end. The town looked inviting as we saw it from the mountain side, but lost its attractions on a close inspection. The streets were narrow, dirty, crowded with ill-natured, ill-favored dogs, which seemed to belong to the lowest type of their species. The houses were mostly low, dark, ill-smelling, and some of them wretched huts made of mud. As we rode around through the narrow streets the question came up where we could find shelter for the night.

      "The dragoman will arrange all that", said Mr. Crunden. "There are a few hundred Greeks here who represent still the old Antioch Church. One of them, Demetrius by name, has rooms that he lets to travelers. We will get rooms there, and the dragoman will provide our meals out of the supplies he had brought along. He has sent a message to have the rooms ready, but we will [62] make some observations before we go to our quarters."

      We remained in the saddle until the sun was setting. We were shown where the grand "street of Colonnades" ran through the city from east to west; where the grove of Daphne, described so vividly in the chariot scene of Ben Hur, once stood to the west of the city; we rode up the side of Mount Silphius on the south, up which the city used to climb, and were shown the sites of each of the four cities, joined together, which caused the one united city to be called "The Tetrapolis." We examined the old aqueduct and the remains of the walls, and felt when we dismounted as though we had done a pretty good day's work.

      After we had eaten our evening meal we gathered into one room, and Mr. Crunden gave a lecture on the history of Antioch. I can give only a bare outline of what he said. The city was founded about 300 B.C. by Seleucus Nicator, one of the generals of Alexander the Great, who organized a mighty kingdom after Alexander's death out of a part of his conquests, of which Antioch was the capital. It soon became a great city. The commerce of Arabia came here through the valley of the Orontes, and that of the East through the mountain passes. Its seaport of Seleucia, twenty miles west, put it in communication with all the Mediterranean countries. It soon became the largest city in all Asia of its time, and is supposed [63] to have had 500,000 inhabitants when Paul was preaching there. It had a motley population of Jews, Romans, Arabs and Greeks, the last named being of the greatest numbers. it was very magnificent, voluptuous and immoral. Though it has had many sieges and has several times been overthrown by earthquakes, its most interesting history is connected with the Church. Here was the first Christian Church ever organized outside of Palestine (Acts 11:19-21). Here the disciples of Christ were first called Christians, and Paul and Barnabas labored here for a whole years (Acts 11:26). This city became the great center of Gentile missions, and sent out Paul and Barnabas as the first missionaries to the heathen (Acts 12:1-3). This church was instrumental in setting the great question of the relation of Gentile Christians to the Jewish law (Acts 15:1,2). It became the greatest center of Christian activities in the first century, and in the second century there are said to have been 100,000 Christians within its walls. It was destroyed by the Persians in A.D. 538, and taken by the Mohammedans a little more than a century later. In 1872 it was destroyed by an earthquake, and has since had only a small population. It now has some 5,000 people, of whom about one-tenth are Christians.

      As I slept that night I dreamed of seeing the Apostle Paul and hearing him preach. In the morning we wandered for an hour or two among [64] the miserable dwellings of a city once so magnificent. When one of the boys expressed wonder that there were no great structures of its period of greatness remaining, like the Coliseum and Pantheon at Rome, or the Parthenon and Theseum at Athens, Mr. Crunden reminded us of the earthquakes which have several times prostrated the whole city. At least six times since the Christian era it has been almost entirely shaken down.

      About 10 A.M., we mounted, stiff and sore from the preceding day's journey, and felt a great sense of relief when we rode into Alexandretta just as the sun was setting. We were soon rowed aboard our ship, happy that we had taken our excursion to Antioch, and still happier that it was safely over.

      We sailed in the night from Alexandretta, and next morning were anchored at Latakia, an ancient city built by the Macedonian kings of Syria before the time of Christ, and called by them Laodicea. We remained here a day and until far into the night, and met with some incidents on shore that greatly interested the boys, but in accordance with my rule to speak at length of those places only which have some connection with the Bible history, I pass these by, and will ask all my young friends to sail with us at once to the great Island of Cyprus, so famous [65] because it was the scene of the first preaching of Paul and Barnabas, when they went forth from Antioch (see Acts, chapter 13) on their first missionary tour among the Gentiles. Look on the map and you will see it in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea.

      When the sun rose in the morning, we were in sight of a great body of land in the west, made up of bare, treeless mountains with green and fertile valleys lying between. In some places the mountains crowded down to the sea, and in other places they retired so as to give room for a spacious plain. We were running only a mile or two from shore, in a southwest direction, with the Island upon our right. We did not need to be told that this was the Island of Cyprus, but the boys were full of questions concerning its size, character and history. It was Will who asked about its size.

      "It is, with the exception of Crete, the greatest island of the Levant. It is 145 miles long, 60 miles broad in the widest place, and has an area of 3,700 miles. Of this area about three-fifths are made up of mountains, and two-fifths of plains and valleys."

      "How far is it from Asia?"

      "It is about sixty miles west of the coast of Syria, from which we sailed last night, but only forty miles south of Cilicia at the nearest point."

      "What people inhabit it?"

      "From the earliest times it was counted a [66] Grecian island, though the population was much mixed. It has passed through the hands of Phoenicians, Greeks, Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Mohammedans, Crusaders, Venetians and Turks. It now belongs to the English. About three-fourths of the people are Greeks. The rest are Mohammedans. The population at the last census was 185,000. It is said to have been 1,000,000 when it was conquered by the Turks in 1571."

      After we had eaten breakfast and returned to the deck, we observed a river which appeared to come down from the mountains, drain a wide valley, and then to empty into the sea. We asked the captain of the ship, who was upon deck, what was the name of the river. He replied:

      "That is the River Pedaius, the chief stream of Cyprus, the only river that runs the whole year round. There used to be a city near its mouth called Famagousta. It stood near the site of a great ancient city called Salamis."

      "Salamis!" shouted David. "That is the place where Paul and Barnabas and Mark landed when they came to Cyprus to preach."

      "That is true," said I. "The missionaries landed at Salamis, then the chief city on the eastern shore, 'preached in the synagogues of the Jews,' and then probably preaching by the way, traveled to the west end of the island, a distance of a hundred miles."

      "It was at Paphos," said Bayard, "that Paul [67]

THE SITE OF SALAMIS.

was withstood by Elymas the Sorcerer, converted the Governor, and seems first to have given up the name Saul for that of Paul. Where is Paphos?"

      "It is on the west side of the Island. Both Paphos and Salamis were already ancient cities in the time of Paul, but were still flourishing, one being the chief seaport on the east and the other on the west. The Roman Governor made his home at Paphos, probably because from thence he could communicate most readily with Rome."

      "Why do you suppose that Paul and Barnabas went first to Cyprus when they started on their missionary journeys?" asked Will.

      "There were several reasons, perhaps. One reason may have been that there was a great many Jews in Cyprus at that time. A century later there were said to be 300,000 Jews in the Island. A stronger reason, perhaps, was that Barnabas himself was 'a Jew of Cyprus,' and wised to preach the Gospel to his old friends."

      By ten o'clock our ship had cast its anchor in the harbor of Larnaca, the British capital of the Island. It also is a very ancient city, and is mentioned four or five hundred years before the birth of Christ, but it was then called Citum. Here, over 400 B.C., Cymon, one of the greatest of the Athenian generals and statesmen, while besieging the place, received the wound that caused his death. The place has now a population of ten thousand, and considerable commerce. Steamship [69] lines runs from here to Athens, Constantinople, Smyrna, Beyrout, Alexandria and Marsailles.

      As soon as we had eaten a lunch we were rowed ashore to spend the rest of the day. We found the weather intensely hot on the low plain on which Larnaca stands, and learned that it has the reputation of being one of the hottest places in the East. We were compelled to move about with great care, keeping in the shade as much as possible, lest we should be sunstruck. One of the first places visited was the Church of St. Lazarus, owned by the Greeks. It is named for the Lazarus of Bethany whom Christ raised from the dead. The priests who have charge of the church think that he afterwards came to Cyprus, preached there, died in Larnaca, and that his remains are now in a tomb connected with this church building. There is an old tradition to this effect which they cite, but we did not give a great deal of faith to it, and enjoyed their church better because it was a cool, pleasant place to escape from the heat, than because of any belief that Lazarus was buried there. We also visited a Catholic Church here where we were shown a picture of Christ which they said was painted by Luke. It gave us the idea that Luke must have been a very poor painter.

      From this place we went to the British Government House and to the Post-office. We found only a few Englishmen in the place, not enough to remind us that it was now in English, had it [70] not been for the British soldiers. The British, when they compelled Turkey in her time of distress to give it up to them, agreed to pay that country about $300,000 a year out of its revenues. They had taxed the poor people of the Island to pay this, as well as to meet the expenses of its government, and the result is that it has not thus far profited by the change. The people seem worse off than ever before. The British ought to make Cyprus happy and prosperous, but before they can do this, they will find it necessary to reduce the taxes.

      Toward evening the boys suggested that we have a bath in the sea. It was an inviting proposition after so hot a day, and we wandered along the beach about two miles from the city, where we had a refreshing plunge in the waves. Above us, on the beach, were great cactus gardens, where the fruit of the cactus, or prickly pear, is raised. In Southern Europe and the East it is often eaten, and makes very cheap and palatable food. What interested me most was the astonishing size of the cactus in these gardens. One would call them trees rather than plants. I found many of which the principal stem was a foot in diameter, and extending to the height of twelve or fifteen feet. Returning to the wharf about sunset we were rowed out to the ship after quite a pleasant day ashore. [71]

      Early in the night we discovered our good steamer was again in motion, but when we awaked at morning light the stillness showed that she had cast anchor. As usual, we hurried on deck in order to take observations. A considerable town, on a kind of cape running into the sea, was before us, with a plain around it covered with garden and orchards of the most luxuriant aspect, while a few miles farther east the mountains arose, and on their slopes we could see a city; whether a part of the one on the beach near us, or a distant city we could not yet determine.

      "What place is this?" asked the boys of the French officer on deck.

      "Tripoli," was the reply. "This place near us is the port, called Al-Mina, and the place you see yonder on the height is the main town. That," said he, pointing to an old fortress, partly in ruins, on a hill overlooking the city, "is the old castle of Tripoli."

      "Tripoli!" shouted the boys. "Tripoli is in Africa. It is the capital of one of the Barbary States. Surely we have not sailed in the night to Tripoli, the capital of Tripoli, where the United States once carried on a war!"

      "No," said I. "This is another Tripoli, but much older than its African namesake. Hundreds of years before the time of Christ the old Phoenicians had a city here. The three great cities of [72] Tyre, Sidon and Aradus, which then had the commerce of the world in their hands, chose this place as a common capital. Each sent a hundred senators here to meet in a common Phoenician congress. The city was divided into three parts, each occupied by one of the three cities of which it was the capital. On this account it came to be called Tripoli, a Greek word, meaning 'three cities.'"

      As soon as we had eaten breakfast we arranged to go ashore. It was Sunday morning, a glorious day, and we learned that there were an American mission and mission schools conducted by the Presbyterians, at the upper city on the mountain side, near five miles from the shore. We thought it would be delightful to meet with the good people conducting these on so bright a Lord's day morning, and, the captain having assured us that he would not sail until one o'clock, we were rowed ashore in the clean attire suited to the day and to attendance at worship. Mr. Crunden, who was with us, at once led us to what is called a tramway which ran between the upper and lower city. The cars differed from our American street cars in the fact that they were "double-decked," that is, not only seated within, but on top. Most of us climbed on top because it would give a better opportunity to see, and then the driver lashed his mules and off we started on a street-car ride over a plain in Syria.

      Soon we left the houses and moved among [73] gardens and orchards filled with trees, running brooks, vines and flowers. They were in magnificent cultivation and the trees were loaded with fruit or green with leaves. On either side were orange trees bending under oranges, not yet ripe, lemons, pomegranate trees with their rich, rosy pomegranates, figs, and mulberries, from which the leaves are gathered for silk worms. It seemed to us that this must either be a very fertile plain, or that the people were unusually industrious and skillful. Mr. Crunden, when we spoke to him of our thoughts, said that both were true. "You will see," said he, "at the upper town a fine river which there breaks out of the mountains. It is distributed into canals so as to water the whole plain. There are about 24,000 people living in the upper and lower town, and full half of them are industrious Christians. That accounts in part for the appearance of these orchards and gardens."

      When we reached the Upper Tripoli it was not yet more than nine o'clock, and as we thought it was too early to call at the mission premises, we wandered for a while through the city. We found it much cleaners than many of the places in Asia which we have visited, a fact always observed if there is a large Christian population, and withal rather a pleasant town. We crossed the River Kadisha on a bridge and long stood admiring the cool, clear, dashing torrent, rushing down swiftly and laughing in the morning sun, as if rejoicing [74] that it had burst forth from the prison of the great Lebanon mountains. How beautiful such a river! What a blessing the abundance of cool, sparkling water, clear as crystal!

      As we were walking along the streets, we noticed through the open windows, a great room filled with boys. We paused to ascertain what was going on, and found that it was a Turkish school. We had not yet visited one, so we seized upon this opportunity to see how it was conducted. There were perhaps a hundred boys and not a single girl; for boys and girls never attend the same schools. Each one had either a book containing a part of the Koran, or a few lines on a printed slip in Arabic characters, or written upon a slate, and each one was swaying his body to and fro, and repeating his passage aloud at the top of his voice. In their midst was moving a long-bearded and turbaned teacher with a rod in his hand, watching to see if any pupil ceased to shout his lesson, and encouraging him by a tap if he seemed to grow tired. Quite a difference between a Turkish school and those in which my young friends are taught in the towns of America!

      Then we went to the Mission Buildings. What beautiful gardens those which we enter as soon as we pass the gates! How clean, neat and quiet all about the premises! Our visit is a surprise, and hence we wander in the gardens for a few minutes until they can put their parlors in order for so [75] great a company, but are soon invited in. We find a cultured and elegant American home in an Asiatic city. The parlors are neatly furnished, the piano stands in its accustomed place, books are piled upon the center table, and a neat, well-filled book case stands in the room. But perhaps more pleasing still to American travelers who had seen none of the female sex for a month but veiled Turkish women, or outlandish-looking and dirty natives, was the sight of half a dozen American ladies, clothed in white, of gentle voices and quiet manners, genuine Americans in this far-off home on the slope of the Lebanon. After a talk with them concerning their work, we worshiped together, and then returned to the ship, with holy impressions of our first Lord's day in Syria, to sail in the afternoon to Beyrout, about forty or fifty miles south, the northern gateway of Palestine. [76]

[YFBL 42-76]