328 I GO A-FISHING. 



is more full of strange and startling occurrences. We 

 are a mixed population, made up from all nations ; and 

 the most lonesome country village is not surprised at the 

 arrival of a Chinaman, a Kanaker, an Arab, or a Parsee. 

 We are great travelers, and there is scarcely a country 

 girl in the land, who has been to school for a year, who 

 does not dream of going to Rome and Jerusalem. And 

 many of them go." 



"You are right," said Mrs. Ward, who with John Steen- 

 burger came out to the piazza at this moment and joined 

 in the talk. " A great many persons imagine that Ameri- 

 can life is so very commonplace and of such even tenor 

 that romance in connection with it is scarcely possible. 

 But there is evidence enough to the contrary. Lady 

 Hester Stanhope's life and death are generally regarded 

 as making up one of the most extraordinary records of 

 modern times. But there was nothing in it really more 

 romantic than in the life of your old friend Roberts. 

 Surely that poor enthusiastic American's days were abun- 

 dantly full of incident." 



"Who was he, Effendi ? I never heard of him." 



"A is right. Alfred Roberts was a man whose 



name deserves to be remembered. 



"I met him first some years ago in the street of the 

 Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. Passing such a man in 

 such a place startled me. We did not speak; and I 

 met him several times, wondering whose calm pale face 

 and gentle eye that was among the grim-visaged Arabs. 



" One evening, when I was seated by the fire in my 

 'hired house' on the Via Dolorosa, burning sacred olive- 

 wood from the mountain of the Ascension, and talking 

 with my friend Righter (who now sleeps profoundly at 

 Diarbekir, on the banks of the Tigris), the old man came 



