SYRIA 105 



on. Mr. J. G. Frazer, in his Adonis, /sis, and Osiris, 

 has collected similar expressions from many other 

 travellers. 



I returned to Beyrout, where, finding one of my 

 horses killed by a fall over a cliff, and being unfit to 

 enjoy or even to endure more riding, I sold the 

 other, and found my way to Jaffa on board an empty 

 collier. The part of its deck that I wanted was 

 cleaned, and the voyage was brief and not un- 

 pleasant. 



The soil about Jaffa is perfectly dry and wonder- 

 fully fertile, but only on the strict condition of its 

 being amply supplied with water. Its environs were 

 traversed by dusty roads between dull mud walls, 

 on whose other side the richly watered gardens lay ; 

 so pedestrians, as might be expected, were thirsty 

 and covetous. I saw a sort of pump handle with a 

 spout on the side of the road, and an inscription 

 above bearing some such encouraging- text as 

 " Drink ! Here is water." Accordingly we pumped, 

 and a little water did certainly come ; but however 

 hard we pumped there issued no more than a scanty 

 streamlet out of the spout. We heard, all the same, 

 a sound of abundance of water that never reached 

 us, the cause of which was soon discovered to be an 

 ingeniously arranged division, by means of which 

 the pumper got only a small fraction of the water 

 he raised, and the garden got all the rest. It was an 

 excellent example of the higher forms of commercial 

 enterprise. They enrich all round, but the merchant 

 to whose initiative they are due gets by far the 

 biggest share. 



I was too unwell for a long day's ride on horse- 



