effect of lessening his height by several inches. The Desert-Born
surveys him gravely and in civil compassion, sometimes with a
muttered prayer against the hideousness of him, but on the whole
with patience and equanimity,--influenced by considerations of
"backsheesh." And the English "season" whirls lightly and
vaporously, like blown egg-froth, over the mystic land of the old
gods,--the terrible land filled with dark secrets as yet
unexplored,--the land "shadowing with wings," as the Bible hath
it,--the land in which are buried tremendous histories as yet
unguessed,--profound enigmas of the supernatural,--labyrinths of
wonder, terror and mystery,--all of which remain unrevealed to the
giddy-pated, dancing, dining, gabbling throng of the fashionable
travelling lunatics of the day,--the people who "never think
because it is too much trouble," people whose one idea is to
journey from hotel to hotel and compare notes with their
acquaintances afterwards as to which house provided them with the
best-cooked food. For it is a noticeable fact that with most
visitors to the "show" places of Europe and the East, food,
bedding and selfish personal comfort are the first
considerations,--the scenery and the associations come last.
Formerly the position was reversed. In the days when there were no
railways, and the immortal Byron wrote his Childe Harold, it was
customary to rate personal inconvenience lightly; the beautiful or
historic scene was the attraction for the traveller, and not the
arrangements made for his special form of digestive apparatus.
Byron could sleep on the deck of a sailing vessel wrapped in his
cloak and feel none the worse for it; his well-braced mind and
aspiring spirit soared above all bodily discomforts; his thoughts
were engrossed with the mighty teachings of time; he was able to
lose himself in glorious reveries on the lessons of the past and