OUR only business in Jaffa being to get away from it, we impatiently expected the arrival of the Austrian Lloyd steamer for Beyrout, the Venus, a fickle¹ and unsteady craft, as its name implies. In the afternoon we got on board, taking note as we left the land of the great stones that jut² out into the sea, "where the chains with which Andromeda was bound have left their footsteps, which attest³ [says Josephus] the antiquity⁴ of that fable⁵." The Venus, which should have departed at three o'clock, lay rolling about amid the tossing and bobbing and crushing crowd of boats and barges⁶ till late in the evening, taking in boxes of oranges and bags of barley⁷, by the slow process of hoisting⁸ up one or two at a time. The ship was lightly loaded with freight, but overrun with third-class passengers, returning pilgrims from Mecca and from Jerusalem (whom the waters of the Jordan seemed not to have benefited), who invaded every part of deck, cabin, and hold, and spreading their beds under the windows of the cabins of the first-class passengers, reduced the whole company to a common disgust. The light load caused the vessel⁹ to roll a little, and there was nothing agreeable in the situation.

The next morning we were in the harbor of Haifa, under the shadow of Mt. Carmel, and rose early to read about Elijah, and to bring as near to us as we could with an opera-glass the convent and the scene of Elijah's victory over the priests of Baal. The noble convent we saw, and the brow of Carmel, which the prophet ascended¹⁰ to pray for rain; but the place of the

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