to my father, and very silent before him and the elders. Often in my
character of boy I used to run and hold Richard's stirrup as he alighted
from his horse, and sat on the edge of the divan while he talked to the
Shaykhs of Palmyra. I always tried to adapt myself as far as possible
to the customs of the country where I found myself, and I think I may
say without flattery that I had a good many capabilities for being a
traveller's wife. I could ride, walk, swim, shoot, and defend myself
if attacked, so that I was not dependent on my husband; and I could also
make myself generally useful--that is to say, I could make the bed,
arrange the tent, cook the dinner, if necessary wash the clothes by
the river-side, and mend them and spread them to dry, nurse the sick,
bind and dress wounds, pick up a smattering of the language, make the
camp of natives respect and obey me, groom my own horse, saddle him,
learn to wade him through the rivers, sleep on the ground with the
saddle for a pillow, and generally to rough it and do without comforts.

We spent five days at Palmyra. The first was devoted to a general
inspection of the place. The second we visited the Temple of the Sun
and the Towers of the Tombs. These latter are tall square towers, four
storeys in height; and each tower contains apertures for bodies like a
honeycomb. I noticed that all the carving was of the rudest and coarsest
kind. There was no trace of civilization anywhere, no theatre, no forum,
nothing but a barbarous idea of splendour, worked out on a colossal scale
in columns and temples. The most interesting thing was the Tombs. These
were characteristic of Palmyra, and lined the wild mountain-defile
entrance to the city, and were dotted about on the mountain-sides. It
was a City of Tombs, a City of the Dead. I was much struck too with the
dirtiness of the people of Palmyra, which dirtiness results in
pestilence, ophthalmia, and plagues of flies.