shameful and cruel death, being nailed by the hands and feet to a wooden cross, and left in the burning sun to die." It is pleasant to turn from this to another locality which Mr. Dixon compares with one at home. The former is the rose garden mentioned in the Mishna, in which figs might be sold untolled, and which, our author (after stating that Jewish gardens were never connected with the houses of the proprietors, but were beyond the walls) conjectures to have been "probably a sook or market in Jerusalem, like Covent Garden in London." The space occupied by the Temple platform, the Haram es Sherey, or sacred enclosure, is clearly represented to an English reader's comprehension in the words "The Haram is about the size of St. James's Park, within the rails." Again, would you grasp at once the distance between Jerusalem and Nazareth, it is as a bird would fly, "about sixtyfour miles, being nearly the same as that from Oxford to London." But, "by the camel paths, and now there are no other, it is eighty miles." In tracing how the lawful traffic in doves, sheep, and sacred shekels, crept from the external market-place into the very courts of the Temple, whence the dealers and money-changers were driven by Jesus, Mr. Dixon remarks that "a thing for sale runs after the buyer;" and he finds a very happy illustration of the encroachment on what is sacred by what is secular, in the metropolitan cathedral of St. Paul's, where the traffic crept from the church-yard, which was a marketplace, into the church, where "the main ailse became an open market, having goldsmiths' benches and hucksters' stalls, with mercer's bills on the columns, a crowd of people chaffering with cheapjacks, and a litter of lap-dogs and poultry on the floor for sale." Again, when standing in sight of Gorizim, and re-casting the feud of the pagan Jew of Samaria, with the orthodox Jew of Mount Zion; of the rejection of the former as Jews, at all, by the High Priests, who forbade them entering the Temple courts; and of the building of a new temple on Gorizim, the traveler's thoughts again turn homeward for an illustration, and he tells us that "from that time forward the feuds of Shechem and Moriah became hot as those between Rome and London after the bull of Paul the Third and the consolidation of the English Church." Mr. Dixon even thinks that a history of the religious antagonism between Rome and London in the darkest periods would reflect much of that between Zion and Shechem. "Like the anathema launched against England, from the steps of St. Peter's, a public curse was thundered against Gorizim from the Temple stairs." The same spirit influences him when dealing with nature alone, and not with man, by whose passions the beauty of that nature has been outraged. His description of the Sea of Genesareth is a true and masterly picture executed in word painting. Under his hand the beautiful lake, the canopy of cloud and sky, the light in which it lived, the shade in which it lay, the life that was on its waters, the other life that was on its shores, the glorious hills, the majestic rocks, the busy towns, the nestling hamlets, brings the old scene into new life, and Mr. Dixon gives the last touch to his picture, by saying: "On the Galilean bank the bright little towns and villages crowded upon each other, as in our own day villas and hamlets sparkle around the shores of Como and Geneva.” Here Antipas Herod erected that gorgeous city of Tiberias, which gave a new name to the lake or sea. On the beach of Genesareth, at Capernaum, St. John, when a child, may have played with his father's nets. Before he had composed his Gospel the lake had lost its ancient name in that of Tiberias, the name of the great city. "Tiberias had given its name to the waters on which it stood," says Mr. Dixon, as he looks on or remembers those waters, "like Geneva to Lake Leman, and Lucerne to that of the Four Cantons." In sight of this once mighty Tiberias, the author thus addresses his readers with true eloquence and powerful ef fect: "In the eyes of a Jew that city of Tiberias, bright as it may have seemed in a Roman's eyes, would be judged impure, not only by the Oral but by the Mosaic law. In laying out his ground, the Tetrarch had been forced to plant some of his streets among ancient graves. To what people these graves had 'turb a sleeping dog. "If you see a man belonged no man could tell; but to disturb striking a dog in Cairo or Stamboul, you the rock in which they had been dug by formay be sure he is a Frank." The Mosgotten owners was an offence of which no lem gentlemen of Jaffa who built a Jew could have been guilty, not because, like a Frank, he would have thought the ground wooden pier, in order that the Prince of holy, but because, like an Oriental, he would Wales might be able to land from the have considered it polluted and accursed. Of gig of a man-of-war, performed an act all the evil things in this evil world, none of most delicate courtesy. After it had was so repulsive to a Jew as death. No sym- thus served he chopped it into splinters, bol of a broken shaft, of an extinguished and gave the wood to the poor. This torch-no imagery of a fading flower, of a sleeping child, made the thought of death was an act of useful charity. In Franbeautiful and tender in a Syrian's mind. To a gistan, the wood, most probably, would Hebrew the symbol of Death was that of a have been sold. Again, when the wild figure laying a snare or presenting a cup of Anezi informed our traveler and his compoison to the lips. Abraham longed to get parions in the wilderness that Hebron rid of Sarah's corpse-let me bury my dead had revolted from the Turks, and that out of my sight. A grave is never in the all the tribes beyond Jordan were in East a sacred thing, and the dead are never deposited in holy ground. Among the Jews arms, they made their salaam, and rode a dead body was to be cast out from the city away into the night. gates, far from the Temple, far from the synagogue, out into the dismal ravines, among the haunts of hyenas and savage curs. No tree, no flower, was planted over a Jewish grave; and a hole in a rock was all that was given to the greatest king. The foulest term in a language rich in powers of abuse was that of death, and the darkest spirit was appeased by calling his enemy a sepulchre and a whited wall." Subsequently, when dealing with the expenses of traveling in the East, Mr. Dixon remarks that "a month at Mar, Elias will waste your means, like a month at Brighton, and a sojourn with the Armenian Fathers, on Mount Zion, is no less costly than a residence at Long's." As it is more pleasant to record good traits, even of infidels, than to count their failings, let us note some of the evidences to character adduced by Mr. Dixon, and which we might employ to our profit as well as our edification. "In every part of the East, among every class of people, a man is tender to his horse, his camel, and his ass, beyond the usage of any Christian land. In Syria, a man's beast is a member of his family, to be cherished and loved, in its degree, as a creature given into his care by God." The excessive oriental tenderness which founds an asylum for aged cats is not without imitation in our own Christian land. In some individuals the commonest virtue is allowed to run into a seed of vice. Character is to be judged of from the general features. A Turk will go out of his way rather than dis "Have they told us the truth, Yakoob?" asked Mr. Dixon, when they had gone. "The truth, master?" says Yakoob, with scorn; their religion will not suffer them to lie!" The Englishman is at disadvantage with these Orientals in another respect. The latter express their faith, even in a common salutation, and are, of course, proud of the expression conveyed under the salute. Moslem salutes Moslem, his equal, with Salaam aleicum ! "Peace be with you!" Eastern Christians, in salutation, make the sign of the Cross. This form might be open to abuse, but Mr. Dixon says that "this salutation is made with singular grace, even by the beggar in his rags." He adds that "an English traveler, making no sign of the Cross, when he greets a brother, is commonly supposed by the Syrians to be a Turk. 66 If the individual be thus ill-interpreted, so is the government as erroneously judged. Mr. Dixon learned many things relating thereto from an aged Sheikh, who bitterly remembered the Egyptian invasion of Syria, and all the calamities that fell in consequence on the inhabitants. The old Skeikh reasoned, after his fashion, from certain premises. The English cannonaded the Egyptians out of Syria. When the Latin Christians descended into the Libanon, English arms drove them away. It was England that drove the Russ back into his ice and snow. When, longer ago, the Franks under Bonaparte, were ravaging the land, England drove them into Egypt and the sea. England then was the best friend of the Arab and his Caliph; the Saxon and the Arab are brothers. "The English are white Moslems of a western sect." Thus are individuals and governments studied and misinterpreted by men whose perceptions are clear, but their conclusions rather obscured! Again, if the wild Anezi refrain from lying, because their religion forbids it, there are equally wild Syrian Turks who avoid robbery under the same prohibition. "More than once," we are told, "when our tent had been pitched for the night near a well, among peasants and soldiers, Yakoob has replied to a caution about leaving such things on the mat as might tempt these natives to pilfer. 'Heugh! they are safe. Turk no take them, his religion not allow him to steal."" Cardinal Wiseman used to tell, with unctuous glee, the story of a Roman Catholic priest who, on the day of Saint Edward the Confessor, had knelt at the shrine of the great king in Westminster Abbey, where, while engaged in prayer, he was disturbed by the remark of a verger, that "Nothin' o' that sort was allowed there!" No Arab would thus be disturbed in his mosque, which to him is a home. The street or road is his place of business or pleasure, the mosque is the place where he may wash in the fountain-court, rest in the inner shade, pray without interruption, and if he will," after finishing his devotions he may throw himself on the mats and sleep." But the utmost liberality of spirit in these western parts, and with their peculiar habits, would never lead a man to the idea of furnishing a fellowman with church accommodation to such an extent as this. Among the good features in the Syrian character may be noticed not merely the recognition of family ties, however different may be the respective conditions of kinsmen, but the kindliness exercised by the better endowed towards the houseless. "When a house has two tiers, as in some parts of Jaffa, and in the crowded quarters of Zion, it will probably be found that one lodge had been raised on the top of another." The house has not been raised a story for the convenience or gratification of the proprietor, it is a consequence of custom stronger than law, whereby a poor man who has no house of his own is permitted "to erect a cage on his neighbor's roof, to burrow or dive under his neighbor's floor, if he can only find his way into this lodging without passing through another man's gate." Mr. Dixon has the triple faculty of acuteness in detecting character, generosity in interpreting it, and ability in giving it portraiture. There is a plump Cairene trader on board the boat that takes him to Jaffa, who has become rich enough to buy happiness in the shape of four wives, and whose jealousy of, and anxious tenderness over them, condemn him to wretchedness and slavery for ever. Again, one sees all the disadvantages of the dress of his Arab rowers thus described, as "clothed in a loose sack or shirt, perhaps bound at the waist, perhaps not, an easy inexpensive costume, apt to many uses, though inclined to misbehave itself, in English eyes, as a mere article of dress." The scene on board the steamer, when the sun is seen rising over the ridges of Ephraim, as the steamer sights Jaffa, is like an old etching by Callot, with so many words for so many strokes: "Priests, soldiers, laymen, pilgrims, are astir in the saloon, in the dim nooks of which a Turkish effendi is kneeling at his prayers; a Moldavian pape is making love to a fair sinner; a French author appears to be copying facts from a French guide book into his own; and a Saxon seems bent on filching a pint of fresh water for his difficult morning bath. Young men who have no time to wash, having to land in less than five hours, are twisting cigarettes for the day. Young women are wisping up those hoops of steel which are soon to become a burden in the saddle, if not a danger in the fierce Syrian sun. Nearly all our guests of the cabin are roaring for their boots, their coat, their coffee, their pipes; but they are roaring to no end, for the steward of Il Vapore is-asleep." We have heard of pink parasols at the pyramids, advertisements of English tailors on the mausoleum of the Pharaohs, comic songs chanted at pic-nics in the tombs of the kings, and bitter beer in the Via Dolorosa; but they seem less out of place than crinoline about to go up to Jerusalem! Solomon could say of his darling Shulamite: "Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, And the hair of thine head like purple;" a but a maid in steel hoops must have de- For the pure Arab race, generally, Mr. "In a Moslem decorous appearance. town," says Mr. Dixon, "there are no plays, no concerts, no casinos, none of the impure public revelries which help to seduce the young in London. Paris, and New York. Bad men and worse women may exist in Zion, as in any other populous place; but here they have to hide their shameful trades, having no balls, no theatres, no taverns in which they can meet and decoy the unwary youth." Indeed there are no gaieties of the simplest sort abroad in Jerusalem, or even at home; for "no one gives dinners, scarcely any one plays whist." A Moslem seldom invites his friend to his house; and Franks do not seem the gayer when they ask a Frank "to sip acids and repeat to each other that there is still no news." There is something to the last degree "respectable" in the entertainments of the priestly gentlemen. "A Mollah will call some Sheikhs to his roof, where they will squat on clean carpets and recite their evening prayers. Refreshed with lemon juice, inspired by devotion, these sober revellers, each with his servant and his lantern, seek their homes and beds about the hour at which men in London are sitting down to dine." Such a banqueting would little suit either the clerical disposition or the clerical constitution in this country. Half a dozen reverends and right reverends, quaffing sherbet and reciting the Litany on an episcopal roof-top in London, would be neither edifying to passers-by nor salubrious to themselves. They are not the less virtuous or exemplary for taking their wine beneath the portraits of their host's ancestors, and making suggestions slightly satirical at the opinions of brethren who are with them generally in the faith, but at issue with them slightly on discipline. But majora canamus. Let us look at a picture of the Virgin, which the author limnes with great power: "Our western fancies," says Mr. Dixon, "working through an instinct of nature safer than half knowledge, have made of this simple life a pastoral full of grace and beauty. Hearing that the best years of her youth and womanhood had been spent before she yet being for ever among the daisies, poppies, knew grief on this sunny hill slope, her feet have made her the patroness of all our flowers. anemones which grow everywhere about; we The Virgin is our rose of Sharon, our lily of the valley. The poetry no less than the piety | Euripides sold it under another name. In of Europe has inscribed to her the whole bloom the days of Gerard, the herbalist, the and coloring of the fields and hedges. May is pious maids of London found abundance her month. Gardens are trimmed in her ser- of "Lady's Glove" to deck themselves vice, and all her chapels are garlanded and decked with nosegays. The favorites of our at their homes withal: "At Islington, meadows, some of them unknown to the flora by London, in the streete, as ye goe from of her own Galilee-such as lady-grass, lady- the ende of the towne next London, vnto smock, lady-slipper, lady's key, marigold, and the church, and in many other barren maiden-hair. But the rose and the lily-the and waste places neere London." All these rose for its lustre, the lily for its sweetness— are more than any other considered as the places are now teeming with crowded huVirgin's own. These flowers belong to the man life, and the "Ladies' Gloves" there are different from that of "Our Lady." Old maidens cultivated "Our Lady's landscape of Middle Galilee, no less than to the poetry of the Christian world." Yes, the poetry and the piety of Chris-lace-grass," and plucked "Our Lady's tendom have combined to do honor to this "Month of Mary:" "For, now before the altars rise Which upward seeks yon distant skies, The mother she, of love divine, For Mary and May." It must, however, be confessed, that in Continental churches the poetry is wrung out of the floral observance of May, and the piety is prettily manifest only in the young. When heaven is besieged by a violence of song that is out of tune, it is not alone the delicacy of ear which is violated. When heaven is besieged by devotees of the Virgin who belong to the balet of a French opera-house, there is, as a Turk would say, "garlic amid the flow ers." In a well-known church in Paris, the floral worshippers, this month, look very much more like waiting-maids of the "Venus Pandeimos," than maids-of honor of the "Venus Ourania." In the old Pagan times, such persons were prohibited from approaching the altar of the mythological Queen of Heaven. The altar of Juno was kept sacred from their touch, and if it suffered by accidental contact, a solemn expiation followed. "Pellex aram Junonis ne tangito," says Festus, "si tanget, Junoni, crinibus demissis, agnum fœminam, cædito." Then some of the flowery names only descend to "Our Lady," like many an other inheritance, from Venus. The "Pectem Veneris was a familiar term before that of "Our Lady's Comb" was ever heard of. The readers of Aristophanes will remember that the mother of thistle." But the most popular of all, perhaps, were the "Lady-smocks" or "Canterbury bells," for they were the first of the "cuckoo flowers," bursting forth chiefly in May, when the cuckoo doth begin to sing her pleasant notes without stammering." The Hampshire and Berkshire maids were not half so proud of their "Lady's mantle," which grew in profusion around them, as the maids of Clare, in Essex, were when gathering the milk-white Lady-smocks which grew there, in May, on the sides of the castle ditch. Then it may be further noticed here that all the poetry, the piety, and the flowers do not belong exclusively either to Venus or the Virgin. Flora, the very goddess of flowers, originally had by far the greatest share. The floral gems were celebrated, in her honor, about this time; and if there be any enthusiasts left who go out on May eve to gather May dew, to wash their faces in it, and to rejoice in the Maying generally, it is fairly disputable whether they are honoring her whose feet in her girlhood and womanhood were among the flowers of Galilee, or that Flora or Chloris, among whose appellations could not be recorded the one which distinguishes Mary, and the rites of whose yearly festival her worshippers were ashamed to perform in the presence of the virtuous Cato. From personages, let us look to the old cities in which some of them dwelt. Here is Jaffa, for instance. Jaffa is one of the oldest cities in the world; and yet Mr. Dixon tells us that "the oldest houses are not more ancient than those of Soho-square." It existed before the Deluge; but the cape jetting out into the waves on which it stands, is |