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I was demoralized for the moment, it is plain; but now that I have recovered from the shock, I must say that the fact mentioned seems to show a great advance in common sense from the notions prevailing in my time. I sauntered, we, rather, my ghost and I, until we came to a broken field where there was quarrying and digging going on, our old base-ball ground, hard by the burial-place.

"The tribe now at Lundu were formerly settled on the Samarahan river for many years; and their burial-place there contained the ashes of the parents and grandparents of the present chief, who, with his followers, were not long ago driven to Lundu; and their former settlement being deserted, it has been the employment of some of the rascals here to rob these graves of their contents, and to desecrate the repose of the dead.

And it is better so; for methinks a person of delicate individuality, curious about his burial-place, and desirous of six feet of earth for himself alone, could never endure to be buried near Shakespeare, but would rise up at midnight and grope his way out of the church-door, rather than sleep in the shadow of so stupendous a memory.

He went into a burial-place, so spacious, that it reached from the city to the very place he had left. He advanced to some high walls, which enclosed a small field, being the mausoleum of a family, and in which there was a palm-tree. Ganem, finding that the burial-place where the palm-tree grew was open, went into it, and shut the door after him.

As the coffin was sometimes carried for a long distance, there were frequently appointed a double set of under-bearers, to share the burden. I have been told that mort-stones were set by the wayside in some towns, upon which the bearers could rest the heavy coffin for a short time on their way to the burial-place; but I find no record or proof of this statement.

The gray masses were pouring fast over the hills toward which we struggled, and the ranks thickened as we drew near the burial-place. I paid little attention to the streets through which we passed. My mind was on the friend whose name I had taken, whose work I was to do.

This new obstacle to the satisfying of his curiosity was no small mortification to him, yet he was not discouraged, but the day beginning then to appear, he saw several great stones about the burial-place. He picked out one, with which he easily knocked off the padlock, and then with much impatience opened the chest.

A few crops were raised on the surrounding fields, and small herds of sheep and goats managed to pick up some sort of a living on the surrounding lands, but poverty reigned there, and Ain Umast is of small account by the side of Sidi el Muktar, which is the burial-place of a saint, whose miracles are still acknowledged by all the faithful who happen to have met with good luck of any sort.

Poor old Timmy lies there; but it is in a part of the grounds where, the sexton tells us, the water rises within three feet of the surface; so, of course, we did not go there for this little grave. His own family selected his burial-place, and probably did not think of this. Kate takes her loss very patiently, though she says that she had no idea how much she would grieve after the child.

Anyhow, he said, would I try to remember that he had chosen his burial-place a place where two rivers commingled some two hundred miles north of where we were camping? I promised to try. It seemed to me a pity that we Could not interchange health and abiding-places he so ague-wrung, so plainly doomed to go, yet withal so keen to stay.