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I took my place behind the two thoroughbred Arabs with the calmness of a French aristocrat starting on his way to the guillotine. I derived some comfort from the fact that we went with extreme slowness, and that a groom walked in front to take care of us round the corners ; but when we were once in the public road, and the leader's head was satisfactorily turned towards Kyrenia, this guardian genius jumped up behind, and it seemed, as I looked before me, as if we had nothing between our-selves and eternity. The road was a steep zigzag, which no English coach would have descended with-out necessity. It was formed in many places by blasting the sides of a precipice, and below it all along were the abysses of a deep ravine. The ap-pearance of it was hardly, in my eyes, mended by my host's conversation. ' Just look at that leader,' he said as the animal gave a frisk. ' He was never in harness till ten days ago. He's a very high-couraged horse, but see how steady he goes. Whoa, boy ! whoa, .boy ! Where are you going, stupid ? ' This last exclamation was caused by a sudden bolt which the high-couraged horse made towards the edge of the precipice. ' Ah,' said Mr. St. John in explanation, ' just there is a mule path, and whenever he sees one he's sure to try to go off on it.' Whilst I was mentally congratulating myself on this escape from destruction the genial voice at my side kept begging me to con-fess that ' after all there was nothing like a tandem ; ' and for the third time I was assenting, when, turning 202 IN AN ENCHANTED ISLAND

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