"I am in the same boat, Captain," the doctor responded.
"I shall leave those subjects to the professor. But we are approaching some objects of interest, and we will defer the matter to another time," replied the commander. "Do you see a white dome on the starboard? That is the tomb of Shekh Ennedek; and it is rather a picturesque affair here in the midst of the desert."
"Was he a fighting character?" asked Mrs. Belgrave.
"Not at all; far from it. He was a wealthy Arab chief. He made the pilgrimage to Mecca, which is the duty of every faithful Mohammedan; and he seems to have been greatly impressed by it, for he gave his cattle and his lands to the poor, and spent the rest of his life on the greenish territory we have just passed through, in religious meditation."
"He was a good man if he was a Mohammedan," added the lady.
"We don't believe that all the good people in the world belong to our church," added the captain. "Do you all remember who Miriam was?"
More than half the party could not remember.
"She was the sister of Moses; and she first appears, doubtless as a young girl, watching the Nile-cradle of her infant brother. The land next south of Lake Timsah, made green by the water, is called Gebel Maryam, probably after the sister of Moses. She was a prophetess; but she found fault with the marriage of her brother, for which she was afflicted with Egyptian leprosy. As you find it in the Bible (Numbers xii.), Moses asked the Lord: 'Let her be shut out of the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again. And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days.' An Arab legend points out this spot as the place where she spent that time, and from which it gets the name of Maryam."
"That's nice, Captain Ringgold!" exclaimed Mrs. Blossom. "I wish you would tell us more Bible stories."
"Some people believe that the Mediterranean and the Red Seas were connected in some remote age of the world, or at least that the latter extended to the north as far as Lake Timsah," continued the commander, without noticing the suggestion of the amiable lady. "In proof of this supposition, certain shells found in the Mediterranean, but not in the Red Sea, have been thrown up in digging for the canal through Lake Timsah.