cherish the feeling in the minds of their posterity, a deeper interest in, and a stronger attachment to, Canaan than heretofore.

The cave of Machpelah has ever been considered one of the most interesting spots in Palestine. By the Jews it was looked upon with the greatest reverence, and it is highly probable that before they were carried into captivity they erected over it a memorial to the illustrious dead. Hence, whilst a Mahommedan mosque now marks the immediate site of the burial-places of the patriarchs, that mosque is surrounded by an extensive wall, formed of large stones, which both Dr. Robinson and Dr. Wilson suppose may be as ancient as the Jewish kings. The mosque itself has been frequently visited by travellers; but so sacred is it considered by the Moslems, that Christians find it difficult to obtain admission. Benjamin of Tudela, a Spanish Jew, who saw it in the twelfth century, says: "The Gentiles have erected six sepulchres in this place, which they pretend to be those of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebecca, and of Jacob and Leah. The pilgrims are told that they are the sepulchres of their fathers, and money is extorted from them. But if any Jew comes who gives an additional fee to the keeper of the cave, an iron door is found, which dates from the times of the forefathers who rest in peace; and, with a burning candle in his hand, the visitor descends into a first cave, which is empty, traverses a second in the same state, and at last reaches the third, which contains six sepulchres, those of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and of Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah-one opposite the other. All these sepulchres bear inscriptions, the letters being engraved thus upon that of Abraham we read: This is the sepulchre of our father Abraham, upon whom be peace;' and so on that of Isaac, and upon all the other sepulchres. A lamp burns in the cave and upon the sepulchres continually, both night and day; and you there see tubs filled with the bones of Israelites; for, unto this day, it is a custom of the house of Israel to bring hither the bones and relics of their fathers, and leave them there."

:

The accounts of later travellers agree, on the whole, with this description; but it appears that, at present, the cave itself is closed, with but few exceptions, even against Moslems.

The burial-places of the illustrious dead are always

looked upon with interest, and this is the most ancient known burial-place in the world. Containing, as it does, the bones of Abraham, the father of the faithful, together with those of Isaac and of Jacob, of Sarah, of Rebecca, and of Leah, it may well awaken in the mind of the visitor emotions of no ordinary kind. May the spot ever be held sacred! May no ruthless hand be permitted to destroy it! An idle curiosity and a love of relics would induce some persons sacrilegiously to invade it, and, if they could find them, and were at liberty to do so, to carry the remains of the patriarchs away. But it is probable that those remains have long since crumbled into dust. The body of Jacob was embalmed, after the manner of the Egyptians, but the hand of time has, notwithstanding, perhaps destroyed it, so that, if search were made for it, it would not be found.

The Egyptians waited the return of Joseph and his brethren at the threshing-floor of Atad, religious views having, probably, prevented their going to the place of sepulture. And now, having performed the rites of burial for their father, the sons of Jacob rejoin the Egyptians, and the vast company pursue their way back by the same road which they had taken before; Joseph and his brethren being not less mournful than when they set out upon the solemn expedition.

REMARKABLE RESCUE OF A FUGITIVE VESSEL.

AN interesting account has recently been published of the discovery of one of the three ships which were sent out in 1850, in search of Sir John Franklin. Its name is the 66 Resolute," and it had been abandoned in 1853, in Wellington Channel, by Sir E. Belcher. After drifting 1000 miles, amid the perils of the Arctic Seas, it has been recovered, and taken into New London, United States. After boarding the vessel, and descending the hold, it was found to be full of water. The pumps were then visited, and being of a new construction, none but the captain was acquainted with the mode of working them. A gang

* From "The History of Joseph." See "Evenings with the Editor."

of men were set to work, and for three days one force-pump of great power was kept going. On the third day all the water was cleared from the hold, and the attention of the captain was turned towards extricating the prize from the dangerous position she was then placed in. The appearance of things on board was doleful in the extreme. Everything of a moveable nature seemed to be out of its place, and was in a damaged condition from the immersion in the water. The cabin was strewed with books, clothing, preserved meats, interspersed here and there with lumps of ice. There was one thing, however, which was very remarkable, and this was the presence of ice for several feet in thickness on the larboard side, while there was not a particle on the starboard. The only argument that can be presented to explain this curious freak of the elements is, that the vessel, lying with her head to the eastward for probably more than a month, received the direct rays of the sun on the starboard quarter, and nowhere else, and thus a daily warmth was imparted to this side of the ship, while the other side, being without this heat, became as solidified with ice as though the sun never shone on it.

There was scarcely anything on board the abandoned vessel that was not more or less destroyed. There was a great lack of fuel on board. Of provisions there was enough, perhaps, to last a crew of 75 men (the number originally carried by the "Resolute ") for nine months. The salt meats were the only articles that were at all in a state of preservation. Everything else had gone to decay. Even the ship's sails, found between decks, were so rotten that the sailors could thrust their fingers through them like so much brown paper. The lower hold was found to contain the library of one of the officers of the expedition, valued at over 1000 dollars. The books were entirely valueless when discovered, and were subsequently thrown overboard as worthless rubbish.

After great difficulties, the captain succeeded in getting clear from the ice on the 16th of October, and commenced his homeward voyage. Upon this, fresh difficulties arose. The ballast-tanks having burst in the hold, rendered the "Resolute very light and apt to roll heavily in the trough of the sea, and gale after gale was experienced. During the voyage, when a little to the north of the Banks of Newfoundland, the "Resolute" came in contact with an

iceberg about 50 ft. in height, on the top of which there was a detached piece of ice of many tons weight, and which the captain expected every moment would tumble down upon the vessel, and sink the prize so gallantly obtained. However, after a great deal of careful working and hard labour, the dangerous obstacle was cleared.

Upon the reporters from the different journals boarding her upon her arrival, all articles of a perishable nature were found to be utterly ruined; glue had dropped out of locker joints, and everything was covered with rust and mould. The wine-locker, facing the library, on the opposite side of the apartment, was filled with a goodly array of bottles, filled with port, sherry, brandy, and champagne. The ceilings were entirely covered with firearms, whaling gear, lances, surveying instruments, telescopes, rocket-guns, and signals. Indeed, every portion of the entire cabin seemed to have been stowed away with valuables. There were two closets at each side of the library, running back as far as the dead lights, which were completely jammed with clothing, boots, stockings, and other articles of wearing apparel. Rolls of cordage and gutta percha piping were also huddled together among the mass of rubbish that had been stowed in these closets. In the petty officers' room, the British navy uniform was scattered about in all directions. Some of the coats and pantaloons were in good condition, and apparently had suffered but little from the damp. In the berths were books, suits of clothing, firearms, powder in canisters, flasks, pictures, tobacco-pipes, and matches. Besides the above articles, there was a variety of eatables and preserves, with which the whalemen had made sad havoc. Many little dainties, such as chocolate, preserved fruits and jams, were found snugly stowed away in the nooks and corners of the berths. In the centre of the apartment the mess table once stood, but in the voyage home it fell to pieces, and had to be thrown overboard by the crew. Here there were several theatrical costumes, which would have been suitable for some of the best "stars" of the day. In the steward's pantry all was nearly perfect; but in the seamen's room the cookery utensils were missing, having apparently been carried away by the exploring party as the most useful to them. All the other portions of the ship were stored with valuable descriptions of property suited to the purposes on which the "Resolute" was employed.

EVENINGS WITH THE EDITOR.

EVENING THE THIRTY-EIGHTH.

THE appointed hour having again arrived, the Editor and his literary aides were once more found assembled at their usual place of meeting, each individual having brought with him or her some book or pamphlet for criticism or review.

"Which work are you going to honour with your first consideration?" asked the Editor of his young friends.

Well," said Edward, "if we are to proceed upon the good old principle of 'first come, first served,' we must give the preference to the volume which I hold in my hand. It should have received our verdict last month, had not our time been consumed before we could overtake it."

"Its title, if you please."

Opening the book, Edward read as follows:-" ZAPHNATH-PAANEAH; or, THE HISTORY OF JOSEPH, viewed in connexion with Egyptian Antiquities, and the Customs of the Times in which he lived. By Rev. THORNLEY SMITH."*

"If the contents answer at all to the title," remarked the Editor, turning to Augustus, "this volume supplies the desideratum which I have often heard you deplore. We have in our language numerous learned and valuable works upon the wondrous antiquities of the land of the Nile, with incidental allusions to those Hebrew heroes who figured so prominently in certain epochs of Egyptian history, and which allusions only serve to excite our longings for more copious information. We catch occasional glimpses of those oldworld worthies as they flit by us amid the deep shadows of the past; but we want to arrest them, to question them, and to elicit from them some of the interesting secrets of their lives. Then, on the other hand, we are by no means deficient in books, of all sizes and degrees of literary pretension, in which the extraordinary career of Joseph is depicted, and his noble character is held up for the admiration and imitation of young men; but in nearly all these productions the Egyptian background and historical accessories are to a great extent absent from the picture. Whether the illustrious young Hebrew was living his pure life amid the monstrous idolatries of ancient Egypt, the elegant and fascinating polytheism of Greece, or the sun-worshippers of Persia, one can scarcely gather from these books, so strangely do they overlook the outward circumstances of his position in the land of the Pharaohs. This defect, at one period, arose from the lack of reliable information illustrative of the earlier periods of Egyptian history. This excuse, however, can no longer be urged, since there is now-thanks to such indefatigable scholars as Champollion, Bunsen, Lepsius, and Osburn -no nation of antiquity of whose political history and social habits, thousands of years ago, so much is authentically known as of ancient Egypt. Any new history of Joseph, therefore, to be truly worthy of public favour, ought to embody, as far as possible, the

* W. Freeman, 69, Fleet Street, London.