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He had nerve-racking difficulty in retaining all he had gotten. He lost his gayety, and his melancholy ways alienated his friends. He eventually turned up at Malaga, where he lived in luxury, where he mingled with Spanish grandees, but he was never the same contented man diffusing cheer all around, that he was before his wealth came.

Awe-inspiring was Gibraltar, the world's strongest fortress, with its inner chambers and tunnels, from which can be made to belch forth fire and disaster to any fleet that may dare to defy its thunder and lightning. The stop at Algiers on the African coast gave the first vision of what is really oriental, in the women whose faces are veiled, and in the men who for our hats and trousers have turbans and skirts. The island of Malta brought memories of the Crusaders, and of the Apostle Paul, of whom a colossal statue marks the place on the coast where he suffered his memorable shipwreck so vividly pictured in the book of the Acts.

Malta has been a possession of England since 1800, and has long been a rendezvous for her mighty warships. The Knights of Malta in 1565 beat back the Turkish hordes during a famous siege, and saved western Christendom. They previously partook of the eucharist, fully expecting to die, for their extermination seemed certain. But under the leadership of the valiant Grand Master, Valletta, who gave his name to the harbor, they gloriously triumphed, the admiral of the attacking navy, who had risen from the position of a cabin boy and galley slave to his proud rank, here falling with a mortal wound, and the entire fleet retiring in a decisive defeat. The island, called Melita in New Testament times, means "the isle of honey" because of the abundance of bees, and it also speaks of a sweet victory for Christianity by knights who were immortalized thereby.

There followed visits to the world's greatest centers of interest, Athens, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Cairo, Karnak or Old Thebes, and Rome, while side trips more or less extended were taken across Europe, from Naples to Edinburgh, from the Italian Lakes with their unsurpassed beauties to the English Lakes with their numerous literary associations connected with Wordsworth, Coleridge and others.

In these pages, we are to change the order of approach, and the last shall be first, in order that, as we advance, we may be getting farther and farther into the Orient. The eternal city can be approached not only by the Mediterranean but also across the Continent. That is the way we first went thither, and we will in a rapid sketch repeat the itinerary. At Westminster Abbey in the Chapel of Edward the Confessor, we look with rapt attention on England's Coronation Chair. It contains the famous Stone of Scone, on which, if tradition be correct, Jacob pillowed his head when he had the vision of angels ascending and descending on the ladder connecting earth and heaven. Upon this Scottish kings were crowned from the time of Kenneth the Second in 840 A. D., till Edward the First of England in 1296 carried it to London. Sitting above this as encased in an oaken chair, every ruler of Britain since has been crowned. English suffragettes to their discredit not long ago tried with dynamite to destroy this venerable relic.

We cross to Paris with its magnificent boulevards and its far-reaching parks. We linger in the Louvre, with its treasures of painting and sculpture. There we see the Venus of Melos (from the island of that name), representing the best days of Greek art, and antedating the beginning of the Christian era, perhaps by four centuries. Older still is the Moabite Stone there, speaking of the "king of Israel" nine

centuries before Christ, and yet more ancient is the inscribed Stela of Hammurabi who preceded the patriarch Abraham. To these two antiquities we will revert later more in detail.

We sail down the picturesque and castled Rhine, with its vine-clad hills, with its reminder of Bingen so fondly recalled when

"A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers."

We cannot forget the request which he made:

"Take a message, and a token, to some distant friends of mine,

For I was born at Bingen, - at Bingen on the Rhine."

No less interesting, on account of legendary associations, is the Mouse Tower on a rock in the midst of the river near Bingen. An Archbishop of Mayence, Hatto 11, burned to the ground a barn crowded with people who had been caught stealing grain during a famine. Their dying shrieks he compared to the squeaking of mice. The legend is that as a punishment for his inhumanity he was eaten alive by hosts of these little assailants, which he could not escape even though he built for himself a tower surrounded by water. They found him in his supposed place of refuge, where he miserably perished from their persistent attacks about 970 A. D. This is a case where a myth teaches an important moral lesson of righteous retribution.

When in Belgium we saw the streets of Brussells crowded on a happy fete day, the ruler of the people joining with them in the festivities. While we have looked with greater satisfaction on other and better monarchs like Edward of England and Alfonso of Spain, and while our eyes

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