furrowed with dry channels of ancient torrents, white and ghastly as
scars on the face of nature. Shifting hills of treacherous sand were
heaped like tombs along the horizon. By day, the fierce heat pressed
its intolerable burden on the quivering air; and no living creature
moved on the dumb, swooning earth, but tiny jerboas scuttling through
the parched bushes, or lizards vanishing in the clefts of the rock. By
night the jackals prowled and barked in the distance, and the lion made
the black ravines echo with his hollow roaring, while a bitter,
blighting chill followed the fever of the day. Through heat and cold,
the Magian moved steadily onward.

Then I saw the gardens and orchards of Damascus, watered by the streams
of Abana and Pharpar, with their sloping swards inlaid with bloom, and
their thickets of myrrh and roses. I saw also the long, snowy ridge of
Hermon, and the dark groves of cedars, and the valley of the Jordan,
and the blue waters of the Lake of Galilee, and the fertile plain of
Esdraelon, and the hills of Ephraim, and the highlands of Judah.
Through all these I followed the figure of Artaban moving steadily
onward, until he arrived at Bethlehem. And it was the third day after
the three wise men had come to that place and had found Mary and
Joseph, with the young child, Jesus, and had lain their gifts of gold
and frankincense and myrrh at his feet.

Then the other wise man drew near, weary, but full of hope, bearing his
ruby and his pearl to offer to the King. "For now at last," he said, "I
shall surely find him, though it be alone, and later than my brethren.
This is the place of which the Hebrew exile told me that the prophets
had spoken, and here I shall behold the rising of the great light. But
I must inquire about the visit of my brethren, and to what house the
star directed them, and to whom they presented their tribute."