"It might, Daisy. Thebes is vastly older."
"But, papa, - don't you remember, there was not one stone of all those buildings to be left upon another stone. Nothing is left - only some of the foundation wall that supported the floor, or the platform, of the Temple."
"Well, we shall see, when we go to Jerusalem," my father said.
In the meantime we went out and took a great walk about the environs of Joppa. Through the miles of gardens; the grand orange groves, and pomegranate, lemon, fig, apricot and palm orchards. The oranges and lemons getting their great harvests ready; cultivation going on beneath the trees; the water- wheels working; the curious hedges of prickly pear, four and six feet high, reminding us all the while, if nothing else did, that we were in a very strange land. What endless delight it was! The weather had just cleared the day before; and to- day, the fifteenth of January, the sun shone still and fair and warm. I saw that papa was getting good with every step, and growing interested with every hour. We went down to the beach, and strolled along as far as the tanneries; every wave that broke at my side seeming to sing in my ears the reminder that it broke on the shores of Palestine. Papa wished the oranges were ripe; I wished for nothing.
Then we entered the city again, and examined the bazars; lingering first a good while to watch the motley, picturesque, strange and wild crowd without the city gate. It was my first taste of Oriental life; papa knew it before, but he relished it all afresh in my enjoyment of it. Of course we were taken to see Simon's house and the house where Tabitha died.
"Do you realise anything here, Daisy?" papa asked, as we stood on the flat roof of the first of these two.
"Yes, papa."
"Pray, what? St. Peter never saw this building, my dear."
"No, papa, I don't think it. But he saw the Mediterranean - just so, - and he had the same sky over him, and the same shores before him."
"The same sky, Daisy? What is the sky?"