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820 MISCELLANEA [CHAP. XXII
fortunately missed. the locomotion was attended with
acute misery, as after unnamable sufferings on the water
the earnest explorers had to face snowstorms on land
and return blue-nosed and despairing to the rocking ship.
But both our trips were on the Whole superbly favoured
by gushes of sunlight, pleasant companionship, and interesting
lectures. These were delivered generally by practised
people, on some famous locality, on the evening
before we landed, and the one I remember best was Dr.
W. Leaf's most suggestive theory of the truth underlying
Homer's Iliad. The venerable and charming Dr. Sanday
was present on the first trip, and Dr. Spooner of New
College on the second, and a goodly sprinkling of University
people and secondary-school teachers.
On the first trip we woke up, after a disquieting night,
steaming down the west side of Peloponnese, in surishine,
with the sea like a blue lake reflecting the snows of Taygetus,
and diversified by countless groups of the shearwaters,
the inexplicable and graceful bird that seems
never to settle. Cecil Spring-Rice, who knew much, told
me these birds bred mainly in the Hebrides, migrated in
early spring to the Levant, and that the local legend
about them was founded, like many others, on the story of
Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The King, it is believed,
fell in love with the visiting Queen, and after her
departure wrote her a letter which he entrusted to one
of the shear-waters as to a postman. . The bird, however,
in· a fit of absence of niind, dropped the letter into the
sea, and on reporting the loss was told by the angry
monarch that by way of punishment he was td look for
that letter and never settle' or rest till he found it ; . and
that this han was to be laid on him and all his fellows and
descendants for ever. · If the letter were found now ·it
would be a little late, and presumably would have heeD. ·
answered, as often happens,. by lapse of time. Of course
it might give a new fillip to the Higher Criticism of the
Old Testament, but we knew nothing of the legend on
that gorgeous sunlit April morning, and could give our-