CHAPTER XLV.

The last twenty-four hours we staid in Damascus I lay prostrate with a

violent attack of cholera, or cholera morbus, and therefore had a good

chance and a good excuse to lie there on that wide divan and take an

honest rest. I had nothing to do but listen to the pattering of the

fountains and take medicine and throw it up again. It was dangerous

recreation, but it was pleasanter than traveling in Syria. I had plenty

of snow from Mount Hermon, and as it would not stay on my stomach, there

was nothing to interfere with my eating it--there was always room for

more. I enjoyed myself very well. Syrian travel has its interesting

features, like travel in any other part of the world, and yet to break

your leg or have the cholera adds a welcome variety to it.

We left Damascus at noon and rode across the plain a couple of hours, and

then the party stopped a while in the shade of some fig-trees to give me

a chance to rest. It was the hottest day we had seen yet--the sun-flames

shot down like the shafts of fire that stream out before a blow-pipe--the

rays seemed to fall in a steady deluge on the head and pass downward like

rain from a roof. I imagined I could distinguish between the floods of

rays--I thought I could tell when each flood struck my head, when it

reached my shoulders, and when the next one came. It was terrible. All

the desert glared so fiercely that my eyes were swimming in tears all the

time. The boys had white umbrellas heavily lined with dark green. They

were a priceless blessing. I thanked fortune that I had one, too,

notwithstanding it was packed up with the baggage and was ten miles

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The Innocents Abroad