i8 SIR VICTOR BROOKE CHAP. 



Captain Arthur Brooke l and myself saw him off from 

 Gravesend, and we had sad forebodings that we might 

 not see his kindly face again, so emaciated and worn 

 did he seem. However, the fine desert air acted as a 

 wonderful restorative, and he was able to return partially 

 cured. In the autumn of that year, 1 888, he was, how- 

 ever, still too unwell to resume the Mastership of the 

 hounds, and, urged by his doctor, spent the next winter 

 at Cairo with Lady Brooke. There is no doubt that 

 he might have increased his length of life very much if 

 during that time he had devoted himself entirely to 

 recovering his health. But to a man of Brooke's 

 temperament it was impossible to spend his life in 

 preserving it, and as soon as he felt himself again com- 

 paratively strong, he set to work to shoot the foxes and 

 wolves in the desert close at hand. In March he went 

 on a brief expedition after ibex in the hills near Suez, 

 and during the month of April carried out a long- 

 cherished wish to make a journey to Palestine. 



Few of all his numerous friends knew how deep- 

 rooted a belief Brooke had in the faith of his childhood. 

 The researches he had made in studying the past 

 zoological history of the world, the friendships he had 

 formed amongst men of all kinds of religion, and of 

 those whose faith had left them, had not for one 

 moment shaken his own views, and when the opportunity 

 came of visiting the Holy Land, he gladly seized it. 



Old as the subject is, and familiar as the scenery has 

 become to Christians of all nations, it still possesses an 

 undying interest. The simple, earnest faith with which 

 he so lovingly describes the hallowed spots, lends a charm 

 to his narrative that will appeal alike to those who have 



1 Flag-Captain Arthur Brooke, C.B., Sir Victor Brooke's first cousin, 

 son of Mr. George Brooke and Lady Arabella Brooke. Captain Brooke 

 died in 1893. 



