adventurous climber upon an esplanade, which, in its days of celebrity, was remarkable for its cultivated fertility and beauty. The mode of ascent, on the western side, was some what more practicable. So invulnerable a position was sure to be seized upon and turned to advantage in a land subject to perpetual tumults and invasions. Accordingly, we find that during the successful struggles of the nation against their Syro-Grecian oppressors, a citadel was built by Jonathan, the last of the Maccabæan brothers, on the brow of the rock. In times of political commotion and violence, when the king of to-day was often a discrowned fugitive on the morrow, it was wise in the season of power to provide an asylum for the hour of adversity. Thus Masada was designed as a repository for treasure, and a sanctuary for the women, during the hazards and storms of war, as well as a last resting-place where the dead might repose inviolate. For a century and half after this period, history is silent respecting this fortress. At length it fell into the hands of the ambitious Idumean, during whose long reign the kingdom of Israel witnessed a transient revival of the splendors of its earlier history. By Herod the Great formidable additions were made to its fortifications. His keen eye at once detected its importance as a rampart on the southeastern boundary of his dominions. The first work of this monarch was to enclose the summit, which was nearly a mile in circuit, within a massive wall of polished stone, twenty-two feet high and fourteen broad. The wall was flanked by thirty-seven towers, eighty-seven feet high, which communicated with buildings resting on and continued along the line of the interior wall. The area thus enclosed contained a soil, it is said, more productive than any in the vicinity. This space was chiefly appropriated by Herod to purposes of culture, so that, should provisions be no longer procurable in the time of siege from extraneous sources, the garrison might have independent resources that would save them from the horrors of famine. In addition to other constructions, the prodigal king built a strong and magnificent palace within the fortifications, on the VOL. XIII.-20 HEROD THE GREAT. western cliff, protected at each of its four angles by a lofty tower. This princely edifice was connected, by means of an underground passage, with the citadel. Within it were contained many spacious apartments, porticoes, and baths, supported by columns formed from a single block of marble. The pavements and the walls of the chambers were inlaid with mosaics. In every habitation, on the esplanade, around the palace, and before the walls, were immense cisterns, excavated in the rock and lined with coarse marble, where copious supplies of water were preserved almost as effectually as if they had been natural springs on the spot. As regards the interior resources of the place, there abundance was even more surprising. Corn was stored up in grauaries in vast quantities. These secret magazines contained also provision of wine, oil, vegetable seeds, and dates, equally ample. According to the singular account of Josephus, the air of Masada was of such a temperature that, although some of these fruits had been laid up for nearly a century since the time of Herod, they were found to be still sound and fresh at the time when Eleazar and his freebooting companions obtained possession of the fortress. Even when the Romans themselves at length became masters of the place, they are said to have found the remains of these supplies, which were still unimpaired by lapse of time. This extraordinary preservation of food is probably attributable to the extreme purity of the atmosphere, arising from the elevation of the fortress, which lifted everything exposed to the action of the air far above the deleterious vapors that hovered over the plains. With the view of rendering this extraordinary stronghold perfectly unapproachable, Herod reared a strong tower in a very narrow defile on the western and least secure side of the mountain, which commanded the only available pathway in that direction. This tower was distant from the citadel about five hundred and eighty yards. Thus military ingenuity, by supplementing the natural advantages of the position, appeared to have rendered the fortress secure against every hostile demonstration. No very lengthened period elapsed after Herod's appointment to the government of Galilee, before he was compelled to avail himself of the friendly shelter of Masada. During the invasion of the Parthians, Herod received a warning from his brother Phasael, who ruled in Jerusalem, that a conspiracy had been entered into by his enemies to seize and put him to death. Alarmed for his safety, he hastily collected a band of faithful adherents, and taking with him the female part of his family, made good his retreat to Masada. The journey was an extremely hazardous one; and although his forces daily augmented, he was so harassed by the foe, that on one occasion, in a paroxysm of despair, he was almost tempted to commit suicide. On approaching the fortress he was met by his brother Joseph, from Idumea, who urged him to dismiss the bulk of his army, consisting now of nine thousand men, and whom it would be very burdensome to accommodate and support in Masada. He complied with this judicious advice; and selecting eight hundred of his stanchest followers, he entrusted to them, under the command of his brother, the defense of his stronghold and the protection of his female relatives, together with the beautiful but unfortunate Mariamne, whom he had betrothed, while he himself proceeded first to Arabia and afterwards to Rome in quest of succor and support. During the absence of Herod at the imperial court, where he was most flatteringly received, Masada was vigorously beseiged by Antigonus. The garrison was actually on the point of surrendering, from the sufferings they endured through the want of water caused by the long drought, when, singularly enough, on the very night which had been fixed upon for their retreat, there was a copious fall of rain, by which the reservoirs were replenished. Thus refreshed and re-inspirited, the garrison made frequent sallies, and slew many of the besiegers. After an absence of scarcely three months, Herod returned to his country, having received from Cæsar the crown of Judea. On landing at Ptolemais his first object was to raise the siege of Masada, and release his destined bride, his mother, and his sister, from captivity. This he speedily accomplished, and then undertook the conquest of Judea and the reduction of its capital. His head-quarters meanwhile were fixed at Samaria. Masada figures upon the pages of the Jewish annalist at the outbreak of the last struggle against Roman supremacy. At some previous unrecorded date, the imperial troops had, by some unknown means, secured possession of the fortress. This important post, however, they were destined not to hold long; for just as the first hoarse mutterings of the storm of ruin hegan to be heard over the devoted land, some zealous and intrepid champions of the war party contrived, either by stratagem or treachery, to obtain admission within its walls, whereupon they put the Roman garrison to the sword, and openly unfurled the banner of revolt. From this moment the post continued to play an important part in the history of the war. The next thing we hear of Masada and its inmates is, that the latter, taking advantage of the disorganized state of the surrounding country, committed terrible depredations upon the neighboring population. According to Josephus, until the fate of the nation approached its final catastrophe the Sicarri, or assassins, as they are opprobriously called by him, had been content to gather from the region around them the means of subsistence; fear, it is alleged, restraining them from depredations of a more serious and exasperating character. On hearing, however, at length, that the invading army of the Romans had gone into quarters for rest, and that the Jews of the metropolis were divided by sedition, and driven to despair by the intolerable oppression of their rob ber-masters, they sallied out by night and committed the most frightful excesses. On the day of the feast of the Passover they fell suddenly upon the small city of Engedi, situated a few miles distant on the same sea-coast. The inhabitants, taken by surprise, and having no time to prepare for defense, were dispersed and driven out of town. All who were unable to make good their escape, men, women, and children, numbering above seven hundred, were put to the sword. After having plundered the houses and ravaged the gardens full of ripe fruit, they hastened back with their spoils to their stronghold. From that time, it appears, they continued to devastate the neighboring districts, augmenting their ranks daily from the numerous predatory bands who, in consequence of the disorder of the times, had no other means of life. a while, impatient of all restraint, he enrolled an army of his own; and then, separating from his former associates in Masada, he commenced a career of atrocious depredation and pillage throughout Judea and Idumea. Groaning under the tyranny of the leaders of the factions, Eleazer and John of Gischala, the inhabitants of Jerusalem invited Simon to enter with his wild Idumean horde. This, after much fierce conflict and carnage, was effected; but, alas! it was a step that only led to a tenfold aggravation of their woes. There were now three hostile camps within the city walls instead of two; and more perished by fratricidal hands than by the weapons and missiles of the common foe, who, taking advantage of those deadly feuds, day by day drew more closely around this doomed people the fatal coils of destruction. At length it is all over. The sanctuary is consumed; the beautiful city is in ruins; and the people have perished by famine, by fire, by sword, by sorrow, by agony, by woe, to the extent of more than a million souls. The residue have been led away to grace the victor's triumphal procession, or have been sold as slaves. The land is desolate and silent. About this time a fearful spectacle might have been, and probably was, gazed upon from the walls and towers of Masada by the garrison. Looking down from their elevated position upon the deep-lying lake, they would perceive hundreds of corpses of their fellow-countrymen floating ghastlily on its sullen surface. These putrefying relics of brave men and delicate women were a portion of the multi-dium has capitulated; and Macharus, held tudinous victims of Roman vengeance, by a band of dauntless men, has been taken who had just been driven into the swollen current of the Jordan when attempting to make their escape from the legions, and had been borne down by the rapid flood into the wide expanse of the Dead Sea. Hero by stratagem, where force had failed. Nothing, from Dan to Beersheba, resists or defies the imperial arms, except one solitary fortress on the Idumean coast. How that last focus of insurrection was crushed; how that final convulsive struggle with Rome was conducted, it is for us now to inquire. As already intimated, the destruction of this last nest of Jewish rebellion was undertaken by Flavius Silva, the newly appointed procurator of the country. For the stirring details of the siege we are indebted to Josephus, whose narrative we shall follow. The Roman general, then, having seized upon the surrounding country, established garrisons in every convenient post, and encircled the fortress with a wall for the purpose of precluding the possibility of escape on the part of the besieged, at the same time distributing de For a season it would seem that Eleazer was not without a powerful rival to his authority. This competitor for power was the fierce and turbulent Simon, who subsequently became so notorious and infamous as the chief of one of the three factions that cursed Jerusalem in its last struggle for liberty, and who, after its fall, was transported to Rome, and figured in the triumph of Titus. Troops having been sent against him, to punish him for the cruelties perpetrated in the toparchy of Acarbantene, he sought an asylum with the possessors of Masada. They at first suspected him, and confined his residence to the lower town, where he established himself with his followers. Soon, how-tachments to watch them closely. He ever, the zeal that Simon displayed in their expeditions won their confidence, though they still refused to co-operate with him in his ambitious projects. After selected for his encamping ground the most commanding point in the immediate vicinity of the fortress; but in other respects it was extremely difficult for him, in such a position, to provide himself with the necessary supplies. Not only were the ordinary articles of subsistence brought from a great distance, and with enormous difficulty, by the Jews who had undertaken to furnish provisions for the army, but even the water had to be conveyed to the camp, as no spring was to be found in the neighborhood. Having made his preliminary dispositions, Silva began the siege with skill and immense labor, necessitated by the position and strength of the fortress. His first efforts were directed against the only point which seemed to admit of successful assault. Beyond the tower, before referred to, which closed the western path leading toward the palace and the summit of the fortress, there stood a rocky eminence of great extent, but lower than Masada by more than five hundred feet. | This elevated platform was known as Leuke, or the White Promontory. As soon as the Roman commander had reached this post he began to construct thereon a huge earthen mound. By the persevering labor of his soldiers the level was raised about three hundred and fifty feet; but the ground was not yet solid enough, was the height sufficient to enable him to work the battering engines. Above this mound, accordingly, he built another platform, composed of huge rocks, and measuring more than eighty feet in length and breadth. Here he planted some of those terrible engines which had already wrought so much havoc and spread so much dismay during the military operations before Jerusalem. And in addition to these formidable preparations, a lofty tower, completely encased in iron, was erected, from the top of which the Romans, by means of slings and cross-bows, drove the defenders from the walls, and suffered not a man to show his head. nor blows, it was constructed in the following manner. Long beams were placed end to end, and laid in two parallel rows, distant from each other the intended breadth or thickness of the wall. The interval between was filled with earth; and to prevent the earth from bursting out, transverse beams were added to strengthen those which were connected lengthwise. Thus the construction of this rampart resembled a solid edifice; while the blows of the engines, falling on a yielding surface, lost their power; indeed, the repeated shocks helped to combine the materials more strongly together, and give additional compactness to the entire fabric. When the disconcerted commander discovered this, he instructed his soldiers to hurl against this new obstacle a quantity of lighted brands. The wall, abounding with wood, now caught fire, and, burning from one end to the other, projected a tremendous flame. At first the wind, blowing from the north, carried the flame directly toward the position of the besiegers, and threatened the destruction of their own engines. But suddenly shifting round to the south, as if by divine direction, the flames were hurled back again, and consumed the bulwark of the garrison from top to bottom, until the whole became a mass of smoldering ashes. The Romans, thus apparently favored by Providence, retired to their camp with joyful elation, with the fixed intention of advancing to the assault on the following morning; adopting the precaution, meanwhile, of stationing strong and vigilant outposts to prevent the flight of the garrison. But during that night such a deed of desperate self-sacrifice and horrible heroism was to be consummated beneath the Syrian stars as has few parallels in human history, and which will render that night memorable to the end of time. We shall describe it in our next. Erecting at the same time an enormous battering-ram, Silva began to assail the wall without intermission, and succeeded in beating down a considerable portion so A BEAUTIFUL THOUGHT.-A little Swedas to open a breach. The garrison, how-ish girl, absorbed in gazing at the starry ever, had not meanwhile been idle; for while the tremendous blows were falling upon the trembling defense, they had been laboring hard to raise an interior rampart which might not, like the outer one, be so readily damaged by the action of the engines. To render this second wall soft, in order to deaden the violence of the skies, being asked of what she was thinking, said: "I was thinking, if the wrong side of heaven is so glorious, what must the right side be!" Of course the wrong side, with her, was that which looked on our world. Surely the right side, that looks toward the throne of God and the Lamb, must be glorious indeed. BEHOLD them wandering on their hopeless way, | Far, far away, with natural dread, Unknowing where they stray; Yet sure where'er they stop to find no rest. The evening gale is blowing, It plays among the trees; Like plumes upon a warrior's crest, They see yon cocoas tossing to the breeze; The gale of evening blowing, To mock his irremediable woe; For not for him the blessed waters flow, For not for him the gales of evening blow; The Moon is up, still pale A cloud ascending in the eastern sky And darkens round and closes in the night. No traveler's home the wanderers to invite; Forlorn, and with long watching overworn, The wretched father and the wretched child Lie down amid the wild. Before them, full in sight, A white flag flapping to the winds of night Marks where the tiger seized a human prey. Shunning the perilous spot, At other times abhorrent had they fled; But now they heed it not. Nothing they care; the boding death-flag now In vain for them may gleam and flutter there. Despair and agony in him Prevent all other thought; And Kailyal hath no heart or sense for aught Save her dear father's strange and miserable lot. There in the woodland shade, Upon the lap of that unhappy maid, And never word he spake, Nor heaved he one complaining sigh, And now the moon was hid on high, She hoped, and longed to touch his brow |