nication between the Orient and Occident, have had and still may have, on the destiny of the world. What momentous results to modern civilization may yet flow from the intercourse carried on with India over the Gulf of Suez! The service which the Red Sea has rendered the Church in furnishing a free passage to her while it slew her enemies, may have been a grand type of a great mission it is to perform in the future history of Christ's kingdom. Upon our arrival here, we learned that Sheikh Hussein, whose sordid nature has become a terror to travelers, was on ill terms with some of the neighboring tribes, that he was six days' journey distant, and could not possibly take us to Petra. This was a sad damper on our hopes. For Petra, the ancient metropolis of Arabia, is next to Mt. Sinai, the most interesting point on this route. We should be obliged to go by Nakel, through another tribe which would protract our Desert journey five days. Fortunately, as we felt much fatigued, we concluded to rest here a day. This would at the same time secure us the society of an English party of two, who had traveled with us part of the way hither. The next morning we had taken half the side of our tent down to get more air, and while I was writing at the table barefooted and without coat and vest, Ahmed brought three Arabs into the tent, and introduced them as Sheikh Hassan, Abon Raschild, one of the most powerful chiefs of the Desert, and his brother. The Sheikh took off his boots at the side of the tent, then approached us and shook hands and passed his hand to his lips. (The usual salutation is to touch the lip, forehead and breast.) He then sat on a stool, while his brother sat on the floor. We had coffee and pipes brought in, the latter of which I shared with a courteous gusto. The Sheikh bore the stamp of native dignity. He is past middle life, of medium height, slightly corpulent, with an expanded forehead, oval face, a piercing eagle eye, and a sprinkling of age in his long beard, while a smile played on his cheek. I had to think all the while of Ishmael and Esau. A soiled silken bournouse girded on his head, a dusty loose slip on his person, a woolen striped toga hung loosely over him, and a Damascus sword at his side, constituted his apparel, just what his inferiors and slaves wear. No amount of artificial culture could have increased the unassumed, graceful dignity of his manners. object of his visit was simply this: A few days ago he received word that none of the travelers have been able to visit Petra this spring on account of Husseins' absence. Raschid being on friendly terms with the Petra tribe, and having four thousand men at his command to awe the other tribes into respect, he at once set out for Akaba, to propose to convey travelers over the desired route. Of course we welcomed him as a providential messenger, and immediately negotiated with him for our safe transport. Our interview presented a picturesque scene, blending primitive with modern features. The Desert chieftain sitting easily on the stool while his brothers couched beside him; M. sat on a low bed, and I whiffing away most orientally in my undisturbed dishabilles, while Ahmed and the other dragomen sat in the centre before the Sheikh, at one time pressing their fingers together, and speaking with vehement action, then seizing his hand as if moved by anxiety. The Sheikh replied in a calm tone of voice; sometimes he would speak into their ear in a loud whisper. The contract was closed, and immediately a messen The 1857.] My Pilgrim's Pouch. 189 ger was sent for his camels, which are to be here in four days from the time. In the evening we had him and his men, ten in number, to dine with us, and the following night they slept in Ahmed's tent. This morning we gave them breakfast, consisting of a large wooden dish full of rice and mutton. They sat on the ground with the basin in the center, pawing out the contents with a manifest zest. Of course knives, forks and spoons were discarded. They washed their hands before and after they ate. Mark 7 : 2, 4. Although not a trace of that ancient Ezion Geber remains, the Sea and the mountains are the same as they were when Moses led the Hebrews along here. The sunset across the gulfis transcendently charming. There is an after-sunset, darting rays of glory into the heavens, shedding orange colors along the horizon, while they shoot rose-tinges upwards. Over them hangs the crescent of a young moon, growing brighter as the colors of evening fade into night. Several days before our arrival an American traveler died here. We could not ascertain his name. He seems to have come to the Desert for his health, and was doubtless unable to endure the fatigue of the journey. His comrades buried him on a hill, back of the village. A heap of stones, to protect it against hungry animals is all that marks his grave. If he has a wife, parents or friends, how they will grieve to hear that he died in the inhospitable Desert; and that his body lies alone in a sterile, parched region, where not a blade of grass grows over his tomb, and where it will perhaps be lost forever in a few months. I felt sad as I stood by his lonely grave. A stranger to be ill and die in a strange land, without sympathy or medical aid, two weeks from the nearest civilized town, and be left even dead, in this weary land, which the feuds and quarrels of Arab tribes may shut up at any time to the visit of affection, seems a melancholy fate. Never have I felt more vividly the force of Jacob's request: "bury me with my fathers." On the last night at Akaba, the two other parties and Raschid met in our tent to close the contract. The Scribe of the village was sent for, who brought his pen and inkhorn in ancient style. He wrote the article on his hand for a desk, and demanded five dollars, which he finally reduced to the usual fee, 25 cents. When it was finished Raschid impressed his seal on it, the universal mode of signing a contract in the East. The agreement is of course worthless if the Sheikh is disposed to violate it. These Kings of the Desert are not amenable to any tribunal where we could obtain justice. Raschid raised the price of camel hire several times, and at last refused to sign the contract unless each party would give him an additional backshish of ten dollars. He would hear of nothing less until one of the ladies interposed, saying that in the country where we came from, the custom was to reward with presents the performance of a good act and not its promise. The Bedouins seem to look upon the unveiled women of the West with a mixture of reverence and amazement. Woman with them is so much degraded, and in her repulsive appearance so vastly inferior to man, that she seems but one remove above the animals around her. WHEN most the world applauds you, most beware: Distrust mankind, with your own heart confer, RAINY DAY AT THE FARM HOUSE. BY THE EDITOR. WASHINGTON IRVING has given us a description of "a wet Sunday at a country inn ;" and though we freely confess that he has done it well, yet are we not fully satisfied with the piece. He was not there over Sunday from choice, but by compulsion; and was therefore not in a proper mood to do justice to the place. The consequence is that in some passages he venteth himself somewhat uncharitably. Moreover, in the very beginning of his piece he exposeth himself and showeth a rent in his morals, saying "I had been detained in the course of a journey by a slight indisposition." So then, as we may lawfully and logically gather, if he had not been indisposed he would not have been detained; on the contrary he would have proceeded on his journey in the face of the fourth commandment! This, as we would here say, vitiates the whole piece. Why, if not for the sake of his own christian reputation, then in deference to the taste and conscience of his christian reader, did he not leave out that sentence! But where there is boilmatter in the system the boil will show itself on the surface. Nor are we pleased with him for making an inn the subject of his sketch. Why not employ his eloquent pen on some country cottage or farm house? Seeing that here too there are many interesting sights on a rainy day. But by this question our pity rather than our indignation is awakened. Poor Irving was a bachelor; and consequently doomed to wanderings unblest. His lonely path lay outside of and away from the home circle. He knew not home in the strict sense of that word, but only stopping places. Thus we find him familiar with inns, and as his taste lieth so his pen runneth. Herein would we insinuate nothing in regard to his morals or immorals, as these, in some sort, by many persons, are connected with inns. On the contrary, we believe he was and is a sober man. We only wish to deliver ourselves to the effect that having ignored the duty of being "the husband of one wife," the current of his life has been necessarily turned in the chanel mentioued; and thus has he written the piece on the country inn, and thus also has he fallen under our just censure! Perhaps we have been ungrateful in our strictures; seeing that, by having his life and his thoughts turned into the aforesaid channel, he has left the subject on which our heart longs to expatiate, open to our pen. Thus, it is left for us to soliloquize on the scenes in and around the farm house on a rainy day. This being so, and having so far done with Irving, we address ourselves to the subject in hand. By a rainy day at the farm house, we do not mean a transient thunder storm which rises in mid-afternoon and drives over in an hour. Though there is much of interest in such an event. There is beauty and sublimity in a regular thunder-storm. We watch the deep dark clouds moving ap slowly from the western horizon, increasing in deepness and darkness 1857.] Rainy Day at the Farm House. 191 as the storm advances. Soon a bank of rolling clouds like a vast arch extends across the sky, from which the lightning glares and darts, while muttering thunder shakes the earth; and beneath the grand arch is seen the broad sheet of white descending rain, hiding the distant woods and sweeping the wide plain of fields, drawing nearer and nearer. Already the birds are silent in the branches, the cattle move toward a shelter; or if shut in, stand in mute wonder and fear, while the plowman has unhitched his horses and is riding toward the barn. Scarcely has the barn-yard gate closed behind him when the big drops fall like bullets into the hot dust of the road, and in a moment more, the rain comes down almost a torrent, and a fair sheet pours from the eaves of the barn, while the tin house spout chuckles in vain to disgorge its overloaded contents. What a pleasant feeling of security comes over us when sheltered we look out into the driving storm. This, now does the plowman, as he stands thoughtfully at the stable door, while roaring wind and descending rain tell him only the more sweetly, that he is indeed sheltered. If his heart is attuned to pious meditation,-and how sad if it be not!—he will now the better understand and feel the charming force of the words, spoken of Zion: "And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day time from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from the storm and from the rain." Or, of those other words spoken of Christ : "A man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a rock in a weary land." It has rained a few hours. The sun has come forth; and the whole face of the earth smiles in freshness and beauty as in a Sunday dress. The horses have rested; and meanwhile the plowman has taken his supper. This done, he goes forth again "to his work till the evening." What a change. The sun has a milder brightness, the trees and fields are greener, the air is purer, and the mountains have a bluer tinge. How calm and beautiful is this evening after the rain. But how have we been interrupted in our main intent by this thunder storm. The rainy day we have in our mind is a regular "settled rain"-a rain which does not begin and end on the same day-a steady deliberate rain, that soaks the earth and fills the rivers, till What a dreary, dripping time it is! But really the cattle seem to have less fear of it than they have of the passing summer shower. It comes not so suddenly, and thus cools them without frightening them. They are the very picture of patience, as they stand in the barn yard to be rained on. But the fowls!-they present a sad picture. How their beauty suffers from the disorder introduced into the delicate foldings of their feathers. With all their picking at them, and stroking them with their bills, they will not be right again until after the sun has appeared. The farmer is not impatient at this protracted rain. It will make the plowing one horse easier. When he goes forth again to the fields, he will not turn up the dry earth, as he did after the thunder shower. It has penetrated a full foot into the ground. How nicely the coulter cuts the sod, and how smoothly the mould-board turns the furrow-and the horses move in a brisk walk. These rainy days are no loss of time to the judicious farmer. He will find in-door work enough for "the boys." The plow irons must be put into proper order. The horse gears must be greased. The barn mows must be cleared, and be put to rights. The stables and feeding rooms need a thorough cleaning; it will even do no harm, and look only the better, if all the spider webs are swept away from the ceiling of the stables and throughout the barn. Then the women have little jobs for the men about the house. The cellar needs attention, where there is some rough and heavy work. Remains of apples, potatoes, turnips, and other roots, must be cleared out; and the localities prepared for a new supply when the time of in-gathering comes round. There is always some one about who is not slow in wood work. An axe, a shovel, or a fork needs a handle. A chair or a bench is to be mended. Some of the racks in the barn need slight repairs. A few window panes are broken, and must be replaced by new ones. The knives must be ground. In short there is enough to do; and there is no need of getting impatient of the long rain, or going to the nearest tavern to pass away the time. In all the sneaking crowd that there doth congregate, you will not find one good farmer; because he finds enough to do at home, which if done will be more credit to himself, and will "pay better." You shall see, when the rain is over, in what freshness and beauty, the earth will lie before you. What deep green the fields have put on. The rain has not been licked up on the surface, as in the hot dust or sand; it has found its way down to the roots, and its influence upon vegetation will be permanent. Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it. Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly; thou settlest the furrows thereof; thou makest it soft with showers; thou blessest the springing thereof. Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness; and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing. RELATION TO CHRIST. Is Christ a head! Each Member lives, Is he a vine! His heavenly root My soul to Christ, the living vine |