ridge of the mountains of Moab, hemming in the Dead Sea, which seems much nearer than it really is. The road winds, at first, between olive and fig gardens, but they soon give way to a succession of stony hills; in forty minutes, we passed a dilapidated Turkish tomb, called Rachel's,"As for me,' ̧”” said dying Jacob, "Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan, in the way, when yet there was but a little way to come unto Ephrath; and I buried her there in the way to Ephrath'—the same is Bethlehem." In all probability it marks the spot of her death; there are many Turkish graves around it. Soon afterwards, we passed the Greek Convent of Mar Elias, and came in sight of Jerusalem! Approaching nearer, and descending towards Mount Zion, the situation fully answered my expectations; the view from this point, embracing the Sacred Hill, the valley of Hinnom, the Mount of Olives, and the Dead Sea, is at once magnificent and beautiful, independent of the associations that render it the most interesting to be seen on earth, except perhaps that from the Mount of Olives, where Our Saviour wept over Jerusalem.

We proceeded along the western hills, and, entering by the gate of Bethlehem, presently alighted at the Latin Convent, where we are now most comfortably established.

Adieu, my dear mother.

LETTER X.

Jerusalem. Excursion to Jericho and the Dead Sea. Journey to Tiberias by Nablous, Samaria, Acre, Nazareth, and Mount Tabor.

Journey, East of the Jordan, by El Hussn, Om Keis, Jerash, Ammon, Bostra, and other towns of the Hauran, to Damascus.

Visit to Palmyra.

Journey into Mount Lebanon, and return to Damascus.

Damascus, July, 1837.

My dear mother,

I sit down to redeem my promise of giving you some account of my journeyings since arriving at Jerusalem.

Of Jerusalem I have but little to say; we took no cicerones. There is no mistaking the principal features of the scenery; Mount Zion, Mount Moriah, the Valley of Jehoshaphat, down which the brook Kedron still flows during the rainy season, and the Mount of Olives, are recognised at once; the Arab village Siloan represents Si

loam, and the waters of Siloa still flow fast by the oracle of God. A grove of eight magnificent and very ancient olive-trees at the foot of the Mount, and near the bridge over the Kedron, is pointed out as the Garden of Gethsemane; occupying the very spot one's eyes would turn to, looking up from the page of Scripture.-It was the only monkish legend I listened to. Throughout the Holy Land we tried every spot pointed out as the scene of Scriptural events by the words of the Bible, the only safe guide-book in this land of ignorance and superstition, where a locality has been assigned to every incident recorded in it-to the spot where the cock crew at Peter's denial of our Saviour, nay, to the house of Dives in the parable. Yet, while I question the truth, I would notimpugn the poetry of some of these traditions, or deny that they add a peculiar and most thrilling interest to the scenes to which they are attached -loca sancta, indeed, when we think of them as shrines hallowed by the pilgrimages and the prayers of ages.

There is no spot (you will not now wonder at my saying so) at, or near Jerusalem, half so interesting as the Mount of Olives, and, on the other

hand, from no other point is Jerusalem seen to such advantage. Oh! what a relief it was to quit its narrow, filthy, ill-paved streets for that lovely hill, climbing it by the same rocky path our Saviour and his faithful few so often trod, and resting on its brow as they did, when their divine instructor, looking down on Jerusalem in her glory, uttered those memorable prophecies of her fall, of his second Advent, and of the final Judgment, which we should ever brood over in our hearts as a warning voice, bidding us watch and be ready for his coming! Viewed from the Mount of Olives, like Cairo from the hills on the edge of the Eastern desert, Jerusalem is still a lovely, a majestic object; but her beauty is external only, and, like the bitter apples of Sodom, she is found full of rottenness within,

"In Earth's dark circlet once the precious gem
Of Living Light-Oh, fallen Jerusalem!"

But her king, in his own good time, will raise her from the dust.

Nor is there, thank God! any doubt about Bethany, the home of that happy family, so peculiarly our Lord's friends during his latter years,