But it was papa that sat down, and I stood by the window, and we read together those chapters of the Acts; and papa grew very much interested, and we had an excellent talk all breakfast time. The strange dishes at breakfast helped the interest too; the boiled rice and meat, and the fish and the pomegranates. I seemed to have my living in Bible times as well as places. The Mediterranean lay sparkling before us; as it was before Peter no doubt when he went up to that housetop to pray. The house is gone; but it is the same sea yet.
"I shall always look upon Jaffa with respect," said papa, at last; "since here it was that the gates of religion were publicly set open for all the world, and the key taken out of the hands of the Jews. It is a little place too, to have anything of so much interest belonging to it."
"That is not all, papa," I said. "Solomon had the cedar for the Temple, and for all his great buildings, floated down here."
"Solomon!" said papa.
"Don't you remember, sir, his great works, and the timber he had to get from Lebanon?"
"Did it come this way?"
"The only way it could come, papa; and then it had to go by land up to Jerusalem - the same way that we are going; thirty- three miles."
"Where did you learn so much about it?"
"That isn't much, papa; all that is in Murray; but now may I read you about Solomon's floats of timber, while you are finishing that pomegranate?"
"Read away," said papa. "Pomegranates are not ripe now, are they?"