HAIFA. (continued 7)

He deprecated strongly the whole course adopted by the British government in Egypt from the beginning, warned me that they underrated the nature of the movement in the Soudan, to which country he was then in favour of granting independence under native rulers, was entirely opposed to English officers at the head of Egyptian troops, thrusting themselves into the mess, and maintained that the whole affair should be settled by a civil commissioner, who should at once be sent by England to the Mahdi to arrange with him the terms upon which the Soudan should be rendered independent of Egypt. As at this time the English had not come into violent hostile collision with the Mahdi, Gordon declared his conviction that such a mission would be favourably received, and that a state of affairs might be arranged which, although not so favourable to the Soudanese as he could have wished, would leave them better off than under Egyptian rule. His idea was that if the Mahdi did not show himself amenable to reason, he might be threatened with a rebellion of the local Soudanese chiefs, who, he felt convinced, could easily be induced to combine against him. In fact, before going to the Mahdi he would have sounded the feeling of these chiefs, with a view, if necessary, to organizing a revolt against him.

In a word, his view was that the Soudan question should be settled by the Soudanese alone, that no Egyptians should be mixed up in the affair; and I have no doubt that if the British government had thought of availing themselves of Gordon's services at this juncture, the question of the Soudan might have been arranged satisfactorily to all parties, except, perhaps, the Egyptian and Turkish governments. He was at that time particularly strong on the necessity of a railway from Suakim to Berber, the concession for which was being then applied for by English railway contractors, who were sanguine of success. He assured me that they were wasting their time; that it was a concession the Egyptian government would never grant, as they were afraid if they did that the whole trade of the Soudan would be diverted to Suakim instead of, as now, coming down to Cairo. “It is a short-sighted policy,” he remarked, “for without that railway Egypt will one day not only lose the trade of the Soudan, but the Soudan itself.”

Not long afterwards there was a report that the concession had been granted, and he wrote me a long letter of many pages, which began with warning me not to believe the report, as it was quite impossible that it could be true, his knowledge of the Egyptian government convincing him that they would make promises, but that nothing would ever induce them to consent to this railway being made, unless they were coerced into it by the British government. He felt equally convinced that the British government had no intention of using their authority in this direction, as, in his opinion, they should do, and that the report, therefore, was without foundation. This, in fact, turned out to be the case.

General Gordon, after spending a few days at Haifa, returned to Jerusalem, promising to bring his tents two months later and pitch them next to mine at Esfia on the summit of Carmel. I was eagerly looking forward to his companionship in the delightful wilderness of this mountain, and had even marked out in my own mind a spot for his camping-ground within fifty yards of my own, when, to my great disappointment, I received a letter from him saying that he was so deeply interested in biblical studies at the Holy City that he felt it his duty to change his mind, as he might never again have an opportunity of verifying the correctness of the views he entertained in regard to the typical nature of its configuration.

Not long afterwards I received another long letter from him on the subject of the Jordan valley canal scheme, in which he took a warm interest. This led to a correspondence, as I entirely differed from him as to its practicability. Towards the end of the year he wrote, saying that he was suddenly summoned to the Congo, and bidding me adieu. Curiously enough, in my reply I said that I did not say good-bye, as I felt sure I should see him again before he left the country. A few days afterwards he once more turned up at Haifa. He had embarked at Jaffa for Port Said in a country sailing craft, and he had been driven by stress of weather so far out of his course that his crew finally ran in here for shelter.

At this time affairs in the Soudan were in a very acute stage, and we again discussed them at great length. His views had naturally undergone a change, as the policy which had been possible seven or eight months previously was impracticable now. He felt great doubt whether, if he went to the Soudan, he could succeed in achieving now what he was convinced he could have accomplished then, or whether the policy he had sketched out was longer feasible. “If it were not for the Soudanese, whom I love,” he said, “the easy way out of it for the English government would be to invite the Turks to go, but it is not probable that they have the sense to make the proposition, or that the Turks would be such fools as to accept it.”

He refused altogether to anticipate the possibility of his being sent to the Soudan, partly because he felt bound in honour to go to the Congo for the King of the Belgians, and partly because he had already had too many differences with the heads of departments under which he had served, and was regarded with too little favour, on account of his refusal to look at every question through official spectacles, to be a persona grata to the English government. He was detained here a week, during which time we not only discussed fully the Egyptian and Soudanese questions, but talked over old times in China, when he gave me many graphic descriptions of incidents in his Chinese campaigns, which have probably never been heard of, and which I now regret I did not record. His modesty was such that I could only compel him to narrate his own adventures by a process of severe cross-examination.

One of his marked peculiarities in conversation was his employment of phrases which he had himself coined to represent certain ideas. Thus he would say of a man: “So-and-so is a very good fellow, but he would never break his medal,” by which he meant that he was ambitious. Gordon himself, when the Emperor of China gave him, in return for his services, a very valuable gold medal, fearing that the sense of gratification he derived from it might prove a snare to him, broke it up and gave away the pieces. Hence the allusion.

Again, he would say, if asked if he knew so-and-so. “I only met him once and then he rent me.” From which I understood that he had felt it his duty on that occasion to give the individual in question a word of good advice, and that the only thanks was that the man resented it, or, in Scripture phraseology, “turned again and rent him.”

One day I observed him writing notes on a slip of paper. He asked me the Christian names of two friends who were staying with me. I told him, and feeling, I suppose, that my curiosity ought to be gratified, he said, “I am writing them down on my prayer list.”

Another day, after using some very strong language in regard to a very high personage who shall be nameless, he added quickly, “but I pray for him regularly.” All this without a vestige of cant. If there was a thing he detested it was hypocrisy, and I trust I may not be suspected of it when I say that the thought of Gordon at Khartoum, and the knowledge that I was on his prayer list, was calculated to produce a lump in my throat. He was full of fun and a most cheery companion with those he knew intimately. He never forced a conversation in a religious channel. He brought with him from Jerusalem a raised model which he had made, to carry out his theory that the hill upon which the greater part of the city was built was in the form of a woman. Taking the mound commonly identified as “the place of the skull” as the head, the lines of topographical configuration certainly bore out the resemblance in a very remarkable manner. He was far more full of this than either of the Soudan or the Congo, and was taking it with him to Brussels to show the King of the Belgians. “I suppose, as you are the king's guest, you will go and stay at the palace,” I remarked. “No, certainly not,” he replied; “I shall go to a hotel. I don't want the king's servants to see my old comb.” He left here on the 18th or 19th of December, 1883, and walked to Acre, twelve miles, to meet the steamer that was to take him direct to Marseilles. He sent his luggage in a carriage.

His last words as we parted were that he felt sure we should never meet again. I said he had been wrong once when he told me that he should not see me again, and I hoped he was wrong now. He said no, he felt that he had no more work to do for God on this earth, and that he should never return from the Congo. Within a month he was in upper Egypt.

It was characteristic of the man that scarcely any one in Haifa knew who he was. Seeing a very handsome garden belonging to a rich Syrian, near Acre, he strolled into it, and was accosted by the proprietor, who asked him who he was. He replied, “Gordon Pasha,” on which my Syrian friend, who told me the story, laughed incredulously, and politely showed him out. Gordon meekly departed without attempting to insist on his identity. The proprietor told me that he felt convinced that he was being imposed upon, because Gordon, when spoken to in English, would answer in bad Arabic, and because, when asked his name, he took his card-case half out of his pocket, as though to give his card, and then, on second thought, put it back again and answered verbally. So my friend lost his chance of entertaining an angel unawares, which he has never ceased to regret, the more especially as his friends take a pleasure in teasing him about it.

My last letter from Gordon is dated Khartoum, the 6th of March. Now that he is gone, and his name has become a household word in almost all countries, and among the professors of all religions, the few among the natives who knew him here treasure up every trait of his marked individuality, and are fond of narrating anecdotes, which grow by repetition. His instinct of retirement and extremely unassuming manner concealed him, so to speak, from general observation; but his simplicity, purity, and absolute singleness of aim made him a sort of moral magnet, irresistibly attractive to those who came directly beneath the sphere of his influence. The potency of his virtue in life has been proved by the imperishable moral legacy which in death he has bequeathed to humanity.

THE CONVENT OF CARMEL versus THE TOWN OF HAIFA.

Haifa, May 25.—It was from Carmel that in times of old a small cloud was seen rising not bigger than a man's hand, which overcast the heavens, and it is not impossible that a political incident which has just occurred here may prove the diplomatic commencement of a storm of another kind pregnant with untold issues. If we look back through history at the origin of some of its greatest events, we often almost fail to discover them, on account of their insignificance. When the moral atmosphere is charged with electricity, it needs but a spark to produce the shock; and so it is just possible that the upsetting of a few stones, on a barren hillside, may open up a question which may assume proportions of very considerable magnitude, as it involves the most dangerous of all elements in a dispute, that of religious fanaticism. The Monastery of Carmel, as your readers are doubtless aware, is situated on the spur of the mountain which projects in a point at an elevation of about five hundred feet above the sea. From this point the mountain gradually rises until it attains a height of about nine hundred feet, immediately behind the town of Haifa and the German colony. The mountain here spreads into an elevated plateau of some extent, affording extensive pasture-ground and good arable and vineyard land. For some years past the claim of the convent over a large area of this plateau has been a matter of dispute, but it only reached an acute stage the other day, when the towns-people were called upon to pay taxes on it. They naturally objected that they ought not to pay taxes on land the use of which they did not enjoy, and access to which was forbidden to them by a wall which had been built by the convent as the boundary to its possessions. In order to bring the matter to an issue, some thirty of the German colonists and as many of the Moslem inhabitants of the town went up in a body and proceeded vi et armis to tear down the wall. While thus engaged some of the monks emerged, armed with spiritual weapons alone. One of them, elevating his cross, pronounced a solemn curse, first in German and then in Arabic, upon the profaners of their sacred soil. The convent being under the protection of the French government, a formal complaint was lodged against the action of the Germans in the matter, and a deputation, consisting of the German and French vice-consuls, were sent down from Beyrout to inquire into it. Meantime the Turkish government interfered, as it had a right to do, seeing that many Ottoman subjects had participated in the act complained of, and decided that the right of the convent to erect the wall was a matter for the local tribunals to decide upon, as well as the question of the validity of their title to the part of the mountain claimed by them. In the meantime instructions were given that, pending the decision of the court, the wall should be replaced in exactly the same position, and of the same dimensions, as before its removal. Advantage was taken of this order to rebuild the wall much more solidly, and to increase its height far beyond the limits prescribed in the order, and the result was the removal of the local governor for negligence in not seeing that the instructions were properly carried out. Meantime the town instituted a lawsuit against the convent, calling upon them to substantiate their legal title to the land.

Now, one third of the population of Haifa is Moslem and Jews, and about two thirds are Christian. The Christians are all under the direct influence of the convent, and the spirit of religious fanaticism runs high on both sides. On measurement being made of the land claimed by the convent it was found to amount to an area of about twelve square miles. According to Turkish law the whole of this would originally belong to the inhabitants of the town for their common use, unless the town council had at some time or other legally parted with it for an adequate consideration. This it was denied on the part of the municipality that they had ever done, and search was consequently made in the records for the act of sale, which would have been registered. On the other hand, the monks had a duly-signed document under which they claimed, but which, on further investigation, was found to be practically a fraud, as none of the formalities had been complied with, and the seal had been affixed illegally by an officer who had been induced for a certain consideration to perform the act. It is not contended that the monks were a party to this irregularity. They seem, indeed, rather to have been the victims of their agent at the time, who perpetrated it, leaving them under the delusion that they possessed a valid title, but the discovery left the court no alternative but to pronounce judgment against them. Against this judgment they have appealed to Constantinople, and it would be difficult to see how it could be reversed, were it not that the interests involved are of such a peculiar character that the purely legal side of the question may be overlooked.

The prestige which the order of barefooted Carmelites enjoys in all Catholic countries is so great that the most powerful influences will be invoked, and possibly not invoked in vain, in their favor. Strong articles have already appeared on the subject in the Continental press of Europe. The Emperor of Austria has, I understand, been personally appealed to, while the pilgrims, who, to the number of about four hundred, have already visited the sacred shrine this year, are every one of them missionaries who will be so many Peter the Hermits, invoking once more the faith of the true believer to protect the sacred mountain from the grasp of the infidel. But there is an element in the affair which removes it from the simple category of Cross versus Crescent, and that is, that the interests of some three hundred Germans are involved. As forming part of the population of Haifa, they enjoy equal rights with the rest of the towns-people, and Prince Bismarck is not a man to see their rights tamely abandoned to the monks. It is true that the question is one which affects exclusively the Turkish government, and there can be no doubt that it would not willingly deprive an Ottoman population of twelve square miles of mountain if they are legally entitled to it, but the united pressure of Catholic Europe might be too powerful a force for the Porte to resist single-handed. It is a different matter when they have the German government at their back, and this quarrel over a right of way and a patch of hillside may yet be pregnant with important consequences. Had the convent entered upon large agricultural operations, their rights over land thus brought into cultivation could not be disputed. The complaint of the population is that they neither cultivate it themselves, nor allow others to cultivate it, or even to graze their flocks upon it. The exclusive possession thus claimed has deprived the German colonists of one of the most important desiderata for the success of their colony.

A retreat from the heats of summer is almost essential to the health of the colonists. If they had the right of way claimed they could, with ease, construct a wagon-road to the top of the hill overhanging the colony, where, at an elevation of nine hundred feet, they would be in full enjoyment of the sea breezes, while only half an hour distant from their homes. The money necessary for the construction of such a sanitarium was provided under singular circumstances a few weeks ago. I was riding just outside the town, on the Nazareth road, when to my surprise I met a foreign lady riding by herself, accompanied only by an Arab, an unusual sight in this country. Following her was a covered litter. On returning to the colony an hour later I found that the litter contained the body of the husband of the lady I had met. He had died in it on the road from Nazareth a couple of hours before I met the poor widow, a perfect stranger and unable to speak a word of the language, forming the solitary attendant of her husband's corpse. These painful circumstances enlisted the warmest sympathy on the part of the colonists, whose kindness and consideration so overwhelmed the lady, who was herself a countrywoman, that before leaving she presented the colony with a check for $7500. These simple people had no idea when they were lavishing their kindness on the widow that she was a lady of large fortune, and this was their unexpected reward. And it is with this money they hope to build their sanitarium.

PROGRESS EVEN IN PALESTINE.

Haifa, June 7.—I was glad to avail myself of an opportunity to revisit Jerusalem after an interval of six years, and by a journey through a part of Judea to see the changes within that period. The attention which has of recent years been directed towards Palestine has perhaps produced more marked results in this province than in Galilee, and in some respects its progress has been more rapid. This is partly owing to the fact that for the past eight years it has been under the administration of a more than usually enlightened pasha, who exercises his authority independently of the Governor-General of Syria, and partly because its holy places prove more attractive both to Jews and Gentiles than do those of Galilee. Hence there has been a larger inflow of capital and of immigration.

Three miles from Jaffa lies the German colony of Sarona, which, like the one at Haifa, was founded some years ago by the Temple Society. It resembles the one there in the character of its buildings and general plan. There is a wide central street with neat stone and tiled roofed houses, and two rows of shade trees, with a short cross street, church, and schoolhouse, and that general air of cleanliness and comfort which Germans understand so well how to impart to their settlements. It is far inferior to Haifa, however, both on the score of salubrity and beauty of position, being situated on a grassy, rolling country destitute of woods, some miles from the sea and the mountains. There is therefore something forlorn in the solitude of its position. The inhabitants suffer a good deal from fever, and many deaths took place last year, which was unusually unhealthy. On the other hand, the fertility of the soil and its proximity to so large and prosperous a town as Jaffa, which now numbers close upon twenty thousand inhabitants, enables the settlers to do somewhat better financially than those at Haifa. They are engaged in extending the area of their orange-groves and vineyards; and as the general experience is that the climate of this country improves under the influence of husbandry, it is to be hoped that a few more years will work a change in this respect, as they certainly must in the general attractiveness of the place. The Temple Society has also a small colony actually in the suburbs of Jaffa, the members of which are engaged in commercial pursuits in that town, and are doing well.

Since I last visited this place emigrant Jews from Russia and Roumania have established no fewer than four colonies in its neighbourhood, which, however, are scattered in different directions at distances of several miles apart. The circumstances under which my journey was made prevented me, unfortunately, from inspecting them as thoroughly as I could have desired. Two of these are under the protection of Baron Rothschild, and enjoy such pecuniary support from him as will secure their future, in spite of the obstacles which, owing to government opposition and other local difficulties, they have had to encounter. So far as energy, industry, and aptitude for agricultural pursuits are concerned, the absence of which has always been alleged as the reason why no Jewish colony could succeed, the experience of more than two years has now proved that such apprehensions are groundless, and that with a fair chance Jews make very good colonists, and are likely, in fact, to succeed better in this country as agriculturists than in America, where they have the skilled industry and indomitable energy of the American farmer to compete with, instead of the helpless ignorance and ingrained indolence of the native fellahin, who are their only rivals here.

Besides these two colonies there are two others, one of which has been struggling on unaided for the last seven years, and which has latterly almost succumbed to the methods which have been resorted to by the government to extinguish it, but which has within the last month derived fresh aid and encouragement from the visit of Dr. Adler, the Grand Rabbi of London, and Mr. Wissotsky, the delegate of a society which has recently been formed in Poland, called “The Lovers of Israel.” The visit of these two gentlemen marks a new era in the fortunes of the Petach Tikveh colony, as it is called, as it resulted in the substantial donation of a sum of £300, and in bringing it to the knowledge of the public. One of the chief drawbacks of the colony has been the unhealthiness of its site, and the purchase of a healthy hill-top, about half an hour distant, has been attended with so much difficulty that it is only now that the colonists have at last secured their title to it sufficiently to warrant the building of houses upon it.

Besides these four Jewish and two German colonies there has been for fifteen years established in the neighbourhood of Jaffa a large Jewish agricultural college, which was founded by the Israelite Alliance, for the purpose of educating Jewish youths in agricultural pursuits. It is a handsome and extensive building, standing a little to the right of the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, amid groves of trees and gardens, and surrounded by a fine tract of arable land. Here are avenues of eucalypti and of bamboos, both trees unknown in this country, and which, from their novelty, form a striking feature in the plantations near the house. For many years this establishment was a source of permanent expense to its founders, and it was feared that the results would never justify the original outlay. Their perseverance has, however, met with its reward. The increase of the annual income last year amounted to $5000. One of the principal sources of revenue are the ethrogim, or gigantic citrons, which are used by the Jews all over Europe at some of their religious festivals, and which, if they can be guaranteed as coming from the Holy Land, command a fictitious price. Besides these they export oranges and vegetables, and have engaged in the manufacture of wines and brandy, for which they find a good sale. It is to be hoped that as Jewish colonies in Palestine increase, and the demand for skilled Jewish agriculturists conversant with the local methods of cultivation and familiar with the language is augmented, a better opening will be found for the youths who have received their education in this establishment. Hitherto the young men, after receiving a good education, of which agricultural science only formed part, have generally seen their way on leaving the college to engage in some more profitable and congenial pursuits than tilling the land. As a rule, middle-aged men with a limited education and large families make better agriculturists than ambitious and well-educated youths.

There is a fifth colony in Judea, which is nearer to Jerusalem than Jaffa, formed of Jews who have apparently been hired to become Christians, by being provided for as colonists; but so far it has proved a failure. The government has refused all permission to build. They are at present living in a large wooden shanty, and are said to be reverting to their old faith, as they find that the new one does not pay.

I have also heard of a sixth colony which is in process of formation, so that adding to these three which are in Galilee, there are altogether nine Jewish colonies now in Palestine— all of which, with one exception, have been established within the last two years and a half, in spite of difficulties which would have discouraged people animated by no higher sentiment than that of merely finding a living. However slow and uncertain their progress may be now, these first settlers may console themselves by the reflection that their experience as pioneers will be of incalculable value to their successors, when altered conditions may arise, which shall offer increased inducement to emigration.

Meantime, it is as well that intending immigrants should not be misled by the delusive reports which are promulgated from time to time of a change in the policy of the government in this respect. Practically the opposition to Jewish colonization on the part of the authorities is as stringent as ever, and any action taken upon a contrary hypothesis will only lead to disappointment.

This increasing tendency to flock into the Holy Land is not confined, however, to Jews alone. There is an annual augmentation in the number of pilgrims who invade it, of nearly all the Christian sects, besides those who establish themselves here under the influence of various religious hobbies. Thus the foreign and Jewish population of this province is constantly increasing, and the effect of this influx is more strikingly marked at Jerusalem than elsewhere; but it is natural that Jaffa, as the port of Judea, should also largely have benefited by its influence, and I was much struck by the growth of the place and the signs of its increasing prosperity. This is, no doubt, due also in some measure to the excellent carriage-road which now connects it with Jerusalem. I saw several large gangs of men at work upon those sections which still remain of the old rough track, which in former days made the journey between these places upon wheels a positive torture. It is true that many excruciatingly rough places still remain, but another year will remove them, and it is the intention of the present governor to extend the road from Jerusalem by way of Bethlehem (it is now almost completed to the latter place) to Hebron, and also to connect the rich country east of the Jordan with Judea by a carriage-road which is in immediate contemplation from Jerusalem to Jericho.

The rapidly improving facilities for travelling in Palestine, the annual increase in the number of tourists who each year visit it, the numerous ecclesiastical and charitable establishments which have been already constructed and are yearly extended, the influx of foreign capital resulting therefrom, and the increase of the foreign population, both Jew and Christian, all tend to give Palestine an exceptional position as a province in the Turkish empire. It is the only one, indeed, where the evidences of progress are steady and substantial; and there can be no doubt that one of the most marked results of this progress will be the importance which the Holy Land is destined to assume in the event of the Eastern question being reopened, for there is no province in the empire upon which political and religious interests of so varied and universal a nature are concentrated.

THE RECENT DISCOVERY OF GEZER.

Jerusalem, June 23.—I was much struck on my way from Jaffa to this place the other day by contrasting the different systems which are resorted to by the varied races of foreigners who are invading Palestine. There is the Jew, with curling ear-locks and greasy gaberdine, and wallet slung over his shoulder, trudging painfully along the dusty road. He has had hard work to slip into the country at all, and has only succeeded probably by means of backshish and a false passport. He has undergone discomfort and privations innumerable to win the privilege, which, to judge by his wan and sickly face, is not likely long to be denied him, of dying in Jerusalem.

As he plods on, leaning wearily on his long staff, he is almost run over by a bright yellow barouche dashing along the road, with four horses, in a style which shows how rapidly Western civilization is striding into the East. It is an English duke “doing” Palestine. He is followed by a motley group of his own country men and women, mounted on horses and donkeys, the women for the most part apparently old maids in straw hats, green spectacles, and veils, while a large proportion of the men are evidently parsons, who wear clerical coats and waistcoats and unclerical pith hats and jack boots. The whole party, consisting of about thirty persons, white with dust, are preceded by an elaborately attired dragoman, whom they are about to follow over the country like a flock of sheep, for they are the last batch of the season of Cook's tourists.

But they were not to be compared for picturesqueness or singularity of appearance with the next cortège which I overtook, and the aspect of which, from a distance, puzzled me excessively. There appeared in front of me a large object of some sort, which was being slowly dragged along by a crowd of people who were evidently not natives of the country. On reaching it I found that it was a huge bell, weighing seven or eight tons, most elaborately ornamented with scriptural and sacred designs in basso-rilievo, and which, placed on a truck with low wheels, was being hauled by about eighty Russian peasants, more than half of whom were women. Looking on this singular group of rugged-featured people, with their light hair and Kalmuck countenances, one felt suddenly transported from the hills of Palestine to the Steppes of Southern Russia. The men wore high boots, baggy trousers, long full-skirted coats, tight at the waist, and flat caps, and the women the sombre and dowdy habiliments common to the Russian peasant class. They were all yoked by the breast with ropes to the truck, tugging it slowly but cheerfully along, and when I stopped and tried to stammer out the few words of Russian which I still remembered, they greeted my attempts with loud shouts of laughter, and made explanations which my knowledge of the language was too limited to enable me to comprehend. But my curiosity was destined to be satisfied at a later period on the arrival of this precious burden at Jerusalem. Meantime I could not but regard with interest the eager devotion of these poor people, and especially of the women, who were thus satisfying a religious instinct by exercising the functions of draught animals, and toiling up the road they deemed so sacred to the holy city, which is invested with a higher sanctity to the adherents of the Greek rite than to those of any other Christian communion. I found afterwards that it took them just a week to drag their bell up to Jerusalem, many falling ill by the way, and one dying, and reinforcements had to be sent from Jerusalem to assist them.

Had it not been for the various houses which have been built for the accommodation of travellers the mortality would probably have been greater, but the increase of travel along this road has multiplied the number of rest-houses, and there are now four or five of various degrees of excellence, to say nothing of Greek and Catholic convents, more or less far from the road, to which pilgrims can resort. The new hotel which has just been put up by a German colonist at Ramleh is among the most conspicuous of these improvements; and here, as the place is one of some archæological interest, and I thought the enterprise of my host deserved to be encouraged, I stayed to pass the night.

In the centuries immediately subsequent to the crusades, Ramleh is often mentioned by the old chroniclers, for it was then, as now, a favorite resting-place for travellers and pilgrims on their way between Jaffa and Jerusalem. But it gradually fell into decay, and three hundred years ago, when the traveller Belon was there, he found it almost deserted, scarcely twelve houses being inhabited, and the fields mostly untilled. It is now one of the most go-ahead places in Palestine, containing a population of at least five thousand, and is surrounded by extensive gardens and olive groves, above which the lofty tower erected by the Sultan Bibars, in the thirteenth century, conspicuously rears its graceful proportions.

By far the most interesting spot, however, in the whole of this section of country lies about two miles to the right of the road from Ramleh to Jerusalem, an hour after leaving the former place, which places it as much out of the track of tourists as if it were a day's journey. It is a mound called Tell el-Gezer, at the village of Abu Shusheh. This village is the property of a Mr. Bergheim, a Jew banker of Jerusalem, who owns an estate here of about five thousand acres, from which I may say, en passant, that he derives a very large revenue.^[4] Apart from the interest of the fact of a Jew being so large a landed proprietor in Palestine, Abu Shusheh has claims upon our notice which have only recently been discovered, and which to those who have been bitten with the enthusiasm of elucidating the ancient topography of Palestine, and identifying its antique sites, is replete with the highest importance.

Among those who have devoted themselves to the study of Palestine geography and antiquarian research the French savant Monsieur Clermont Ganneau ranks second to none. One of the problems which has for many years excited the interest and curiosity of Palestine explorers was the whereabouts of the ancient city of Gezer. We gather from the Biblical record that this was an important town prior to the arrival and settlement of the Israelites in the country. In the book of Joshua it is classed among the royal cities of Canaan. Its king, Horam, was defeated by Joshua while attempting to relieve Lachish, which was besieged by the Israelites. Later it was included in the territory of the tribe of Ephraim, and assigned to the Levitical family of Kohath. It is mentioned several times during the wars between David and the Philistines, and during Solomon's reign one of the Pharaohs made an expedition against it, which resulted in the capture and burning of the town. It afterwards became part of the dowry of Pharaoh's daughter when she became Solomon's wife, and he rebuilt it. The last we hear of it was in the wars of the Maccabees, when it reappears under the name of Gazara. Taken by assault in the first instance by the Jews, it passed successively into the hands of the two contending parties, who attached equal importance to its possession. John Hyrcanus, the Jewish commander, made it his military residence.

It was during his study of the old Arab geographers that M. Clermont Ganneau came upon the name Tell el-Gezer, and finding that it met all the topographical requirements of the Bible, he went in search of it at Abu Shusheh. Here he found that a mound on Mr. Bergheim's property was known to the natives by that name, though it was too insignificant ever to have figured on any map. On making minute investigation, he discovered, to his delight, a bilingual inscription; the first word, in Greek characters of the classical epoch, was the name of a man, “Alkio,” immediately followed by Hebrew letters of ancient square form, the translation of which was “limit of Gezer.” This settled the question, and the English Palestine Exploration Fund at once sent a special mission to verify Monsieur Ganneau's discoveries. This they did most completely, finding four other inscriptions, besides making a most complete survey of the place. As is not uncommon with such very ancient remains, the first aspect of the spot is disappointing. There are, in fact, no ruins visible, with the exception of a few terraces on the Tell, consisting of large blocks of unhewn stone. The Tell itself, on which part of the city appears to have stood, is a sort of ridge about six hundred yards long, one hundred across, and two hundred and fifty feet above the surrounding rocky valleys. The foundations of the ancient houses may be traced possibly in the numerous rock-cuttings with which the place abounds, but it is difficult to distinguish them from cuttings for quarrying stone on the old method, and certainly many of the cuttings were those of quarriers. There are the remains of what was apparently an old fortress at the eastern end of the Tell, but the most remarkable features are the numerous wine-presses, which number about thirty, some of them in an excellent state of preservation. There are also some tombs, but these are rare and scattered, which is to be accounted for by the fact that this was a Levitical city, within the limits of which no interment was allowed. There are numerous chips of stone, some apparently basaltic, and much broken pottery all over the Tell, and many flints, some of which were worked, have been discovered. While he was building his house, which is just under the Tell, Mr. Bergheim found a deep cistern about forty feet square, lined with small stones and covered with two coats of cement, which was hard and white; the walls were about two feet thick, and it seemed to have a niche in its eastern wall, as though it had at one time been used as a chapel. In the niche a cross was found, painted red, and beneath it a stone altar, which has been removed; but all this points to an early Christian occupation. Mr. Bergheim has since converted the cistern to its original use. He also found a curious idol in hard red pottery. The fellahin say that many of these “dolls,” as they call them, used to be picked up, and were given to the children as playthings. Flint instruments, earthenware weights, and rubbers in composition, for use in cementing cisterns, have been found in ploughing on the Tell, and near its southwest extremity a number of skeletons were discovered, apparently of persons slain in battle; one had a sword-cut on the skull. An aqueduct cut in the rock is also traceable along the hillside.

Altogether the place is a good deal more interesting than it looks at first sight, and had its owner been an antiquary he would doubtless have had splendid opportunities of making a valuable collection. That the spot has always had a semi-sacred character in the eyes of the country people is evident from the traditions which attach to it. One is that the city of Noah stood upon the hill here, and that the deluge came from a place called Et Tannar, which is a cavity with an old well on the east slope of the hill. The modern name Abu Shusheh, or “Father of the Topknot,” is said to be derived from a dervish who prayed for rain in time of drought, and was told by a sand diviner that he would perish if it came. The water came out of the earth and formed a pool, into which he stepped and was drowned. The people, seeing only his topknot left, cried, “Ya Abu Shusheh” (O Father of the Topknot).

It is a pity that, with the exception of the one deciphered by Monsieur Ganneau, the inscriptions are so much effaced that, although certain characters can be made out, they have hitherto defied translation. Some of them appear to approach to the later Hebrew forms, while others bear some resemblance to Cufic.

There are other sites of interest which lie more or less distant from the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, but I had not time to visit them, though the comparatively more advanced state of civilization of this province and the good accommodation to be found on the road would facilitate the explorer's task. On the other hand, the examination of this part of the country has been so thorough that he cannot hope for the rich rewards that are to be found in more inaccessible districts.

TRADITIONAL SITES AT JERUSALEM.

Haifa, July 20.—It is a melancholy reflection, and one by no means creditable to the Christianity which prevailed in the fourth century after Christ, that the Jerusalem of the present day, the Holy City of the world par excellence, should contain within its walls more sacred shams and impostures than any other city in the world. The responsibility for the gross superstition which prevails in regard to sites and localities mainly rests with the fourth century, and chiefly with the Empress Helena, who was principally instrumental in inventing them, and the Christian churches, especially the Greek and Latin, find it in their interest to foster these transparent frauds, for the enormous pecuniary advantages which accrue from them.

The extraordinary amount of research and investigation of which Jerusalem has been the subject during the last twenty years, the extent of the excavations which have been made, involving an expenditure of about $100,000, and the conscientious impartiality and profound acquirements of the explorers, have demolished the whole superstructure which early and mediæval Christianity had reared upon the credulity of its votaries; and which the churches of the present day, despite all the evidences to the contrary, find it in their interest to perpetuate. Thus it has now been proved to demonstration that, wherever the tomb in which Christ was laid after his crucifixion may have been, it could not have been in the cave over which the gorgeous edifice called the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands; for we now know by recent examination the position of the walls which enclosed the city in the time of Christ, though some still deny the correctness of the latest conclusions which have been arrived at. We also know that Calvary, or Golgotha, where he was crucified, was “nigh at hand” to the sepulchre; that Golgotha was “nigh to the city,” and not in it, and that Jesus “suffered without the gate,” and that all tombs, saving those of David and Huldah and eight Jewish kings, were without the walls, while the cave over which the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is built is within them. As, however, even the churches do not go so far as to maintain that any tradition had been preserved among Christians during the first three centuries after the death of Christ of his place of burial, they have had to resort to inspiration as the means of its discovery. Some of the early writers maintain that it was the Emperor Constantine himself who was divinely inspired to find it; others that it was his mother, the Empress Helena. This is a trifling discrepancy. Whichever it was, the fact of the inspiration remains, and scientific investigation has, ever since the days of Galileo, been bound to give way before ecclesiastical inspiration and infallibility. So, no matter whatever evidences exist to the contrary, crowds of pilgrims will continue to crawl over those sanctified stones, wearing them hollow with their kisses, as long as the sacerdotal organization of which it is the representative remains to impose upon them its authority.

With considerate ingenuity, and possibly with a view to lightening the labors of the pilgrims as much as possible, the early Church crowded as many sacred stones together under the roof of the holy edifice it could with decency. Thus we have the Stone of Unction, on which Christ's body was laid for anointing, but it was getting so worn that the real stone lies below the marble slab, which, however, answers the purpose for the pilgrims. Close by is the Circular Stone, where the Virgin stood while the body was being anointed; also the stone on which Jesus stood when he appeared to Mary Magdalene, and the stone on which she stood, and the column to which he was bound when scourged; and your devout guide will show you, if you have the patience to attend to him, the exact place where Jesus was stripped by the soldiers, the place where the purple robe was put on him, the place where the soldiers cast lots for his raiment, the rent in the rock made by the earthquake, the place where his body was wrapped in linen cloths, the place where he indicated with his own hand the centre of the world, and so on, ad nauseam.

Sometimes another Church commits a burglary and steals some of these stones. The Armenians have been especially guilty in this respect. They have stolen from the holy sepulchre the stone on which the angel sat, that had been rolled away from the door of the sepulchre, which they now display in the chapel of the Palace of Caiaphas; also a piece of the true cross, which was originally discovered under inspiration by Helena, as well as that of the penitent thief, who is now canonized under the name of Dimas. I don't know what authority they have for calling him Dimas, whose reputed birthplace is, for political reasons, going to be converted into another holy place. There is something rather appropriate in the idea of the power that is waiting for a chance to despoil the Turkish empire of Syria erecting a shrine in worship of the penitent thief.

The most remarkable sites are those which illustrate the parables. Thus, pilgrims are shown the window which was the post of observation of Dives, and the stone, now worn by the kisses of the faithful, where Lazarus sat when the dog licked his sores. I asked my guide where the dog was, but he said he was dead, and added, with a smile, “I don't believe any of these things.”

I asked him why not.

“Oh,” he replied, “I'm a Jew.”

After that the glibness with which he pattered off all the Christian traditions was very edifying until my patience was exhausted, and I said, “Well, supposing, as we neither of us believe in any of these invented sites, we go and try and find something that is real.”

He had been in the service of some of the recent Jerusalem explorers, and I afterwards found him an intelligent companion.

It is a striking illustration of Moslem religious toleration, as compared with that shown by Christians in Jerusalem towards Jews, that while this man could accompany me into the Mosque of Omar, that most beautiful and sacred of Mohammedan temples, he was not allowed even to enter the street in which stands the Christian Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

So far as Christian rites are concerned, it may, then, be taken as a fact that the interest which attaches to Jerusalem has but a very slender relation to them. The great natural features, of course, must always remain. Bethlehem, Bethany, and the Mount of Olives are as they ever were, but there are two Gardens of Gethsemane, one claimed by the Latins and one by the Greeks. When we descend to more minute details they are either purely mythical or at best only matters of vague conjecture. One of the best illustrations of the purely mythical is Christ's footprint on the rock from which he ascended into heaven, which is a good deal smaller than that of Buddha, which I have also seen on the top of Adam's Peak in Ceylon, or of Jethro, which the Druses showed me in the Neby Schaib.

Among those open to conjecture, the position of Calvary and the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea are points upon which research may still throw light. Every indication goes to show that Golgotha, or Calvary, was a knoll outside the Damascus gate, exactly in the opposite direction to that affixed by Christian tradition, and which would do away with the Via Dolorosa as a sacred thoroughfare, the street shown as that along which Christ bore his cross on his way to execution. It is only probable that Calvary was the ordinary execution ground of Jerusalem, which is called in the Talmud “the House of Stoning” about A.D. 150, and which current tradition among the Jews identifies with this knoll, a tradition borne out by the account of it contained in the Mishnah, or text of the Talmud, which describes a cliff over which the condemned was thrown by the first witness. If he was not killed by the fall, the second witness cast a stone on him, and the crowd on the cliff or beneath it completed his execution. It was outside the gate, at some distance from the Judgment Hall. The knoll in question is just outside the gate, with a cliff about fifty feet high. Moreover, we are informed that sometimes “they sunk a beam in the ground, and a crossbeam extended from it, and they bound his hands, one over the other, and hung him up.” (Sanhedrim vi. 4.) Thus the House of Stoning was a recognized place of crucifixion. It is curious that an early Christian tradition pointed to this site as the place of stoning of Stephen, the proto-martyr. The vicinity has apparently always been considered unlucky. An Arab writer in the Middle Ages pronounces a barren tract adjoining accursed and haunted, so that the traveller should not pass it at night.

The Valley of Judgment (or Jehosaphat), which the Arab calls the Valley of Hell, passes not far east of the knoll, the Arab name of which is Heirimayeh, probably from a cave in the knoll called Jeremiah's grotto. The idea that this was in fact the Place of the Skull was warmly adopted by the late heroic defender of Khartoum, General Gordon, who spent the year before he went on his fatal mission to the Soudan in investigating points bearing on these subjects as tending to uphold theories which he held in regard to them, and which he explained to me at great length. Before leaving England he sent some notes on these to the Palestine Exploration Fund, and in their last quarterly statement these are published. They are full of pathetic interest now. In regard to the Place of the Skull, General Gordon says that “the mention of the Place of the Skull in each of the four Gospels is a call to attention. Whenever a mention of any particular is made frequently we may rely there is something in it. If the skull is mentioned four times, one naturally looks for the body, and if you take Warren's or other contours, with the earth or rubbish removed, showing the natural state of the land, you cannot help seeing that there is a body, that the conduit (discovered by Shick) is the œsophagus, that the quarries are the chest, and if you are venturesome you will carry out the analogy further. You find in the verse in the Psalms, ‘Zion on the sides of the North,’ the word ‘pleura,’ the same as they ‘pierced his pleuron, and there came forth blood and water.’ God took a pleuron from the side of Adam and made woman. Now the Church of Christ is made up of or came from his pleura. The stones of the Temple came from the quarries, or chest of the figure, and so on. So that fixed the figure of the body to the skull.”

This theory led to Gordon's forming a singular and mystical conception of the emblematic character of the city as typifying in actual configuration the New Jerusalem, the divine bride.

The most interesting fact, however, in connection with this knoll is the recent discovery upon it of a tomb, which has excited considerable interest as being, from its position, more likely to be the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, in which never man had been laid before Christ, than any hitherto known. From the knowledge we have now acquired of rock-cut tombs in Palestine we are able to judge from its appearance and construction its probable date, and these all go to prove that it belongs to the later Jewish period, or that which terminated with the destruction of Jerusalem. The appearance of this tomb so near the old place of execution, and so far from the other tombs in the old cemeteries of the city, is very remarkable. A careful plan of the site and tomb has been made by Lieutenant Mantell, R. E., and sent to England, where the subject has lately afforded matter for discussion. The reason why the tomb was not found by the early Christians in their search for it at the time of Constantine is easy to be accounted for by the fact that, about ten years after the crucifixion, the “Women's Towers” were built by Agrippa upon the rock over the tomb, and it must have been hidden beneath or within the new building. Under these circumstances the sepulchre could no longer be visited, and in course of time its existence was forgotten, until the Empress Helena destroyed the temple to Venus which the Romans had built on the present site of the Holy Sepulchre Church, and “beyond all hope” (as Eusebius words it), discovered the rock-cut Jewish tomb, which the faithful accepted as the tomb of Christ.

A peculiar interest does nevertheless attach to these extremely ancient tombs in the Holy Sepulchre Church, one of which is now appropriated to Nicodemus, the nature of which I will discuss in my next letter. It is extremely probable that either Constantine or Helena heard that tombs of a high sanctity stood beneath the Venus temple, and they thought they could not do better than take the most sacred tomb to which tradition of any sort attached, and call it the holy sepulchre. Modern iconoclasticism and love of truth have, however, proved too strong for fourteen hundred years of unfounded tradition. If the churches had only taken half as much trouble to preserve the moral truths which are to be found in the teachings of Christ, as they have to preserve a cave in which he was never buried, the world would have been so much the better instead of so much the worse for their exertions.

TRADITIONAL SITES AT JERUSALEM—Continued.

Haifa, August 3.—The discoveries which have been made in Jerusalem during the last few years, and the conclusions at which those who have most deeply studied the subject have arrived in consequence, render it extremely desirable that a new or revised description of the Holy City should be inserted in the tourists' hand-books for Syria and Palestine. Travellers should be warned against dragomans who waste their time taking them to see Christian sites which have no relation to the facts they are supposed to commemorate, and possess no interest of any kind beyond the philosophical one that they illustrate the extraordinary credulity and superstitions which exist among the professors of Christianity in the nineteenth century, and which are certainly not exceeded, even if they are paralleled, by those of any heathen religion.

A Jerusalem hand-book, to be of any interest, should deal with the conclusions resulting from the excavations and researches of Sir Charles Wilson, Sir Charles Warren, Captain Condor, M. Clermont Ganneau, and others, during the last twenty years, and leave the traditions of the Latin and Greek churches almost out of the question altogether. Their researches have settled nearly all the topographical questions connected with ancient Jerusalem, which had previously been the subject of so much controversy and error, the doubts and difficulties connected with them arising from the fact that the city had been more or less destroyed and built over so many times that the original foundations of its walls and Temple could only be determined by extensive and laborious excavations; and in the course of these many collateral discoveries were made.

We learn from the publications of the Palestine Exploration Fund that these excavations were carried on under difficulties of every kind, in face of the opposition of the local government and in spite of continued fevers and lack of funds. The mines were driven to extraordinary depths; one at the southeast angle of the Haram being eighty feet deep, and another, near the northeast angle, being one hundred and twenty feet beneath the surface, where it reaches the solid rock. In consequence of the great depths, the scarcity of the mining frames, and the treacherous character of the débris through which the shafts and galleries were driven, the work was one of unusual danger and difficulty, requiring much courage and determination. Sir Charles Warren and the non-commissioned officers of his staff worked constantly with their lives in their hands, and often undertook operations from which the native workmen recoiled. The prudence and discipline of the party, however, secured valuable discoveries without an accident; and it is generally acknowledged that the results are of an importance which fully repays the labor and difficulty of the operations.

Sir Charles Warren was the officer who so courageously entered the desert of Sinai after the late Egyptian war, when he succeeded in capturing the murderers of Professor Palmer, Captain Gill, and Lieutenant Sharrington, and bringing them to justice. The result of his labors in Jerusalem, and that of his fellow-explorers, is a magnificent atlas, published last year by the Palestine Exploration Fund, containing a most elaborate series of maps, plans, elevations, and engravings, which reproduce the sacred city in all its most striking features, accompanied by a handsome volume of descriptive matter. We are thus able to base an account of the ancient topography of the city on data more exact than any previously acquired, and to read the ancient historic accounts by the light of ascertained facts, instead of guessing at probabilities by the aid of descriptions, which, however carefully written, are still, as all descriptions must be, vague where the student requires most exactitude, and deficient where he most wishes for details.

With the assistance of these publications a guide-book might be compiled which would enable the tourist to order his dragoman to take him straight to the places worth seeing, instead of—following on the track of exploded tradition—going with him like a sheep to those that are not. Much could be done to clear away existing confusion and prevent the perpetuation of error by a change in the received nomenclature, whereby things should be called by their right names so far as they are known, instead of by misleading appellations, derived from the records of early pilgrims or the later crusaders. I will take a few examples as illustrations. Not far from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre the guide shows the traveller an immense reservoir, now being filled up. This, he says, is the Pool of Bethesda, but it has only been thus designated since the fourteenth century. In the twelfth this pool was supposed to be a cistern near the Church of St. Anne, and in the fourth the site of Bethesda was shown at the twin pools, northwest of Antonia. The fact is that there are only two sites which may be regarded as possible for Bethesda, one being the spring of En-Rogel, which has an intermittent ebb and flow, and which is still frequented by the Jews, who bathe in it to cure various diseases. The other is the curious well immediately west of the Temple enclosure, now called Hamman Esh-Shefa, or the Healing Spring, a long reservoir reached by a shaft nearly one hundred feet deep. None of the pools which have at various times been selected by tradition have any supply of living water, and none can well be supposed to have any intermittent rise and fall, such as we understand by the moving of the waters.

Again, take the tombs of Absalom and St. James. There is nothing whatever to connect the first with Absalom. The singular style of its architecture shows that it cannot be the pillar “Absalom reared up for himself during his lifetime in the king's dale.” M. Clermont Ganneau has made excavations uncovering the bases and pedestals of the columns, all of which are purely Greek. Indeed, it is only since the twelfth century that it was called the tomb of Absalom at all. The author of the Jerusalem Itinerary calls it the tomb of Hezekiah, and Adamanus, in the seventh century, calls it the tomb of Jehoshaphat. It is possibly the monument of Alexander Jannæus spoken of by Josephus. So, too, the tomb of St. James has nothing to do with St. James; for there has lately been discovered on the façade an inscription in square Hebrew in so inaccessible a position as to have been only probably cut before the façade was completed, which mentions that the family of the Beni Hezir are buried there. This family of priests is mentioned in the Bible (1 Chron. xxiv. 15). The inscription seems to date from the first century before Christ.

The so-called tomb of David is a vault over which has been built a room, called the chamber in which the Feast of the Passover prior to the crucifixion is supposed to have taken place. Close to it is the Palace of Caiaphas, and in it is shown the spot where Peter stood when he denied his Master. Near it is the rock upon which the cock roosted when he crew. The “rock,” the “spot,” the “palace,” the “Cænaculum,” and the “tomb” all rest upon equally invalid authority. As regards the tomb of David, we know that it was within the walls, together with those of eight other Jewish kings. That the place was apparently well known as late as the time of Christ we gather both from the Acts and Josephus. It is remarkable that one undisputed Jewish tomb still exists in such a position as to have been certainly within the city of David. This is the so-called tomb of Nicodemus, and it is yet more remarkable that in its original condition, before it was partly destroyed, this tomb must have been just made to contain nine bodies, placed in kokim, or graves cut according to the oldest arrangement employed by the Jews. Josephus mentions as a peculiarity of the tombs of the kings that some of the coffins were buried beneath the surface, so as to be unseen even to those standing within the monument. Just such an arrangement exists in the tomb under consideration, the floor of which is sunk so that the graves on one side are on a lower tier. It seems, therefore, quite possible that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre preserves the monument of the nine chief kings of Jerusalem. Of course, tradition, with its usual ignorance, places “the tombs of the kings” on the hill of the upper city, where your guide takes you to see them, and where there are no ancient tombs at all, the tombs there being of a date not earlier than the first century before Christ. A fine sarcophagus, with an Aramaic inscription, stating that it held the body of a certain Queen Sara, was discovered in them. Though called by a wrong name, they are, nevertheless, well worth visiting. As it is supposed by some authorities that Helena, Queen of Adiabene, was also buried here, they might more properly be called the tombs of the queens.

But the really great work which recent investigation has accomplished has mainly reference, not so much to such details as these, which must always remain more or less matters of speculation, as to the settlement of controversies affecting the topographical questions connected with ancient Jerusalem. First, in regard to points upon which all are now agreed. There is no doubt about the Mount of Olives and the brook Kedron. It is agreed that the Temple stood on the spur immediately west of the Kedron, and that the southern tongue of this spur was called Ophel. It is also agreed that the flat valley west of this spur is that to which Josephus applies the name Tyropæan, though there was a diversity as to the exact course of the valley, which has now been set at rest by the collection of the rock levels within the city. It is also agreed by all authorities that the high southwestern hill, to which the name of Sion has been applied since the fourth century, is that which Josephus calls the upper city, or upper Market Place. The site of the Pool of Siloam is also undisputed, and certain natural features have been determined, which serve as data on which to construct the walls of the ancient city and fix the site and area of the Temple enclosure in the time of Herod. There is still some controversy in regard to the exact position and course of the city walls prior to its destruction by Titus, but this is chiefly maintained by those who are fatally affected in their religious sentiments. There is also a difference of opinion in regard to the area of the Temple building. Practically, however, this point has been settled by the great weight of authority on one side, which affirms that the present Haram enclosure, in which are situated the mosque of Omar, and the sacred stone, represent the area of Herod's Temple, only one or two standing out for a restriction of this area. If the Turkish government would only allow explorations to be made under the platform of the dome of the rock, the very rock upon which Abraham is supposed to have been ordered to sacrifice Isaac, and if the examination of the closed chambers known to exist on the north and east sides of this platform could be carried out, the controversy might be set at rest by actual discovery. Of the Temple of Solomon little is known, though it is possible that the great scarps in the present British cemetery may be as old as the time of David, or the eleventh century before Christ. They are, without doubt, the oldest existing remains in Jerusalem, and formed part of the ramparts of the upper city. Meantime, the most interesting spot which it contains, whether for Jew, Christian, or Mohammedan, is that mysterious dome of the rock, with its gorgeous mosque covering the sacred stone, which Christ himself must have regarded with as much veneration in his day as the adherents of the two other religions, so widely opposed to the one of which he was the founder, do now.

PROGRESS IN JERUSALEM.

Haifa, August 10.—There is probably no city in the dominions of the sultan which has undergone more change during the last few years than Jerusalem, and as any change which implies progress, implies also the increase of foreign influence, and is always viewed with suspicion by the Porte, the march of events in Palestine is watched by Turkish statesmen with a jealousy which finds its expression in a persistent effort to oppose it. As, however, the basis of the movement to which Jerusalem owes its increase during recent years is a religious one, and is founded upon a sentiment which proverbially thrives by opposition, all efforts to retard the influx of population and capital into the Holy City have proved unavailing. Owing to increased facilities of travel, the pilgrimages both of the Greek and Latin churches have been more numerous. A new feature is that some of the richer pilgrims from time to time establish themselves here. This is especially the case with the Russian members of the Greek Church. The influx of Jews has also been increasing to a remarkable extent. The Protestant sects are constantly enlarging the field of their operations, and new charitable and educational establishments are springing up from year to year. An American society of Second Adventists has been resident here for some years, while isolated religious cranks find in the Holy City an appropriate dwelling-place, for reasons known only to themselves.

The result of all this is that whereas when I was last here, six years ago, only a very few houses had been built on the Jaffa road outside the walls of the town, now there is an extensive and constantly increasing Frank suburb. The price of land has risen fifty per cent., and is still constantly rising. New hotels and shops have been opened to meet the increasing demand. Within the last twenty years the population of the Holy City has certainly doubled, the increase consisting entirely of Jews and Christians. Apart from its sacred associations the city has no attractions as a residence of any kind, but quite the reverse. This fact possesses a highly important political significance, because it is evident that in the degree in which the vested interests of rival sects and religions accumulate upon this spot it is destined some day to become a bone of contention between them. It is probably the only city in the world where the same amount of capital and enterprise is expended on objects which are in no sense remunerative, while in proportion to its size there is none where a larger sum is annually given away, either in the form of charitable or religious donations. Nothing strikes one more than the proportion of buildings having some sort of public character or other to private dwellings, and these buildings are constantly increasing. This year the estimated expenditure of the Greek and Latin churches will be over $600,000 for building purposes alone. The number of Russian pilgrims who visit Jerusalem annually is about five thousand, and it is constantly increasing. They are all accommodated in the extensive premises belonging to the Russian government, in the centre of which the Russian consulate is situated, and which forms a sort of Russian suburb to the Holy City. Here one feels transported for the time to the dominions of the czar, as he hears on all sides the Slav tongue, and finds himself jostled by men and women in the peasant costume of their own country, chaffering over wares which the more enterprising of their number have imported to sell to their own country people, while they squat in stalls and booths which they have roughly extemporized for the purpose.

When you consider the amount of foreign money which is annually expended in Jerusalem by these hosts of pilgrims—those of the Latin Church, however, do not equal in number those of the Greek—by the tourists and general influx of sightseers who flock here during Easter week, and by the churches and societies in building operations, you cannot wonder that many persons have of late years become wealthy, and that many natives of Syria and the Levant are attracted to the town in the hope of becoming so. The tide having thus set in, it goes on increasing, and the rivalry of the Latin and Greek churches imparts, as it were, a stimulus to the whole jumble of creeds and nationalities which cluster round the sacred shrines.

Among the latest and most interesting arrivals are a number of Jews from Yemen. Hitherto these little-known people had only been heard of, or at most seen, by one or two enterprising travellers who have penetrated from Aden into the southern deserts of Arabia Felix. I was told that they consider themselves as belonging to the tribe of Dan. They have lately arrived as refugees in Jerusalem from Yemen, where they have suffered great misery during the recent wars between the Arab tribes which inhabit that province and the Turkish troops. Finding themselves ultimately reduced to starvation by the plunder of which they were the victims from both sides, they determined to seek shelter in the Holy City, where they arrived in rags in a starving and destitute condition. They have since been provided for by subscriptions among their co-religionists raised in Europe. I met some of them one afternoon, down at the Place of Wailing, and was much struck by the mild and gentle expression of their countenances. They are reputed to be well versed in their own religious lore, and to be devout without being hypocritical, which is more than can be said for Palestinian Jews generally. Although they were themselves engaged in sedentary and commercial pursuits in Sana and other towns in the fertile oases of southern Arabia, they report that among the nomads of these deserts are wandering tribes in no wise, so far as their external appearance goes, to be distinguished from Arabs, but who are nevertheless purely Jewish.

I also met while in Jerusalem a black Jew from Cochin in India, where Jews have been established from time immemorial, but he seemed somewhat vague as to his ancestry.

Among all these different nationalities and sects, which as a rule hold each other in holy abhorrence, it is singular that they all have one view in common, or rather, perhaps, it should be said that they all seem to labour under one impression, or presentiment, and that is that before very long the Holy City will undergo a change of some sort. The nature of this change naturally takes the form peculiar to the national or religious tendency of thought. With the Russians and French it is reduced to a very simple political expression, which may be summed up in the word annexation. This idea is more firmly fixed among the Russians than the French. Indeed, the Holy City plays a greater part in the Greek religion than it does in the Latin, and the affections of the orthodox are centred on these shrines to a degree unknown among Christians of any other denomination. There is hardly a village in Russia in which there is not to be found a bottle of Jordan water, and the devotional instincts of the peasantry, which are very strong, are directed by the Church, which is in Russia synonymous with the government, upon the holy places in Palestine, as shrines which have a spiritual value not recognized by other churches to the same extent, and which, therefore, when the day comes, should entitle it to their temporal and territorial proprietorship. In other words, there is not a Russian pilgrim who visits Jerusalem who does not hope that he may live to see the day when it will become a Russian city, and who does not long for the call to a holy war, the object of which should be the exclusive possession by Russia of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and of the city in which it stands.^[5]

In France there is no such religious enthusiasm, except with a section of society, and, although the conquest of Syria and Palestine enters into the programme of the government, and their religious protectorate over the Latin Church and its interests gives them a strong point of departure, it is weakened by the fact that the government is professedly anti-Catholic, and that, even were it not so, the sentiment for the holy places is not so strong among the Latins as among the Greeks. With the Protestants there is a large class who base their belief in an immediately pending alteration in the political conditions under which Jerusalem now exists, upon their interpretation of prophecy. They profess to find it clearly indicated in Ezekiel, Daniel, Revelations, and elsewhere in the Bible, that the protectorate of Palestine is to be vested in England. Among the Jews there are many also, though they interpret the prophetic writings in a totally different sense, who believe that the fulfilment of the prophecy which is to restore to them their ancient country, with its sacred city, is at hand, and all Moslem tradition points to the present time as one critical to the fortunes of Islam, with which the fate of Jerusalem, which is to them also a holy city, is inextricably interwoven.

Whether we have any sympathy with any of these views or not, the mere fact that so many nations and races of diverse religions, from one point of view or another, centre their political and religious aspirations upon this spot, makes it the most interesting city upon the earth's surface, because there is none other which, when its possession comes to be disputed, will excite such powerful or such conflicting ambitions, superstitions, and passions. These considerations become doubly interesting when we connect them with the events which are now transpiring in the East.

One day while I was in Jerusalem the huge bell which I had seen dragged by Russian pilgrims along the road from Jaffa arrived. It was destined for a new Russian church which has lately been built upon the Mount of Olives. Anxious to witness the ceremony of its reception, I set out for the Mount and reached the summit just in time to see the bronze monster, which I calculated weighed about eight tons, arrive at its destination. A large crowd of Russian men and women, headed by two priests of the Greek Church in full canonicals, and chanting sacred songs, were dragging it to the platform from which it was to be finally elevated into the belfry prepared for it. When, after much pulling and hauling, it was at last placed upon the platform, a solemn religious service took place. Every individual man and woman in the crowd pressed forward to kiss the uplifted crucifix which the priest presented for their adoration, crossing and prostrating themselves, and crowding also around the bell to kiss the various sacred groups of figures represented upon it in basso-rilievo. At last, after a final melodious chant in which all joined with great earnestness, the officiating priest gave the signal for three cheers, which was responded to with heartiness, and the ceremony was over.

I now went to examine the interior of the new church which it was intended to decorate, and was glad to find that the accident which had led me to come here to witness the arrival of the bell was the means of introducing me to a new and interesting discovery of recent date. The Russians, in excavating for the foundations of their new church, came upon the pavement and other remains of an ancient building, which they have been careful to preserve. Many of the most interesting objects found are placed in a cabinet. In the hall of the priest's house adjoining the church is a beautiful tessellated pavement, representing animals, fish, apples, and geometrical patterns, with an inscription in Armenian formed of colored tesseræ. East of the gate into the garden, and close to the house, is a rock-cut chamber, with a vault of modern masonry. It measures about twenty-four feet by fourteen, and contains sixteen sarcophagi, arranged in groups of four, with a passage between. These were closed by slabs, and on three inscriptions were dimly discernible. North of this were the foundations of a building, apparently a chapel, with a tessellated floor and a row of piers about two feet square. Near by is a cave with a modern vaulted chamber, and an iron door which has apparently been placed there to protect a long inscription in old Armenian characters, formed also of colored tesseræ, but I have no means of knowing what it signifies. Beneath the floor of the house are said to be other tombs, which can be reached through a masonry trap-door. It is not unlikely that all these remains belong to an Armenian mediæval monastery. The site, which has recently been acquired by the Russians, is some hundreds of yards distant from the highest part of Olivet, where the Latin chapel stands, usually visited by tourists who go there to see Christ's footprint. It commands a magnificent view, and the new Russian edifice will make an important addition to their rapidly growing collection of sacred buildings.

Nothing is more aggravating to the members of either the Greek or Latin churches than to find the rival sect in solitary possession of a holy place. It is the immediate signal for the purchase of another site as near as possible to the one already occupied, and the erection upon it of an opposition building. No greater piece of luck can befall the owner of a piece of land than to stumble upon remains which show that it had been in the occupation of the early Christians. He can then name his own price, and, like the fortunate proprietor of the land on which St. Stephen's Church is now about to be built by the French, may get a thousand napoleons for what he had a very short while before only paid fifty.

Before bidding adieu to Jerusalem, it may be interesting to my readers that I should notice some of the more important discoveries that have been made there within the last year or two, and which are not, therefore, to be found in any guide-book. For many of the details I am indebted to the Palestine Exploration Fund publications. Among these have been many tombs, some of them of much interest, but none equal to that to which I have already alluded, as being the most likely of any which have yet been discovered, to be the tomb of Christ. I have given at length the reasons in a former letter in support of this presumption. It is approached by a court cut in the rock seven feet square, and two stones in this are so placed as to give the idea that they may have held in place a rolling stone before the door. On the right is a side entrance leading into a chamber with a single loculus, and thence into a cave eight feet by ten. If, instead of turning into this, we go straight on, we descend two steps into a chamber six feet by nine; from either side wall, and in the back wall of this chamber, are three low passages; they lead into three other small chambers, each about seven feet long by six wide, and on each side of each are stone benches on which bodies could be placed, with a narrow passage between them; so that, in fact, the whole tomb could contain six bodies. Whether it be the real Holy Sepulchre or not, it is interesting from the fact that it is the only Jewish tomb that has ever been found so close to the ramparts of the modern city on the north, and to the spot which may, with comparative certainty, be identified with Calvary. It stands not very far distant from a piece of land which a man bought a year or so ago for fifty napoleons. On beginning to excavate for the foundations of his house he came upon some tessellated pavement, carvings, and all the evidences of remains of some importance. He lost no time in making his discovery known, and, finding that it stood upon what must have been the site of the early Christian Church of St. Stephen, to commemorate the spot of his martyrdom, the Roman Catholics gave the man a thousand napoleons for his land, and have laid bare the remains with a view to building another church over them. I examined them with some interest, as it was such a recent discovery, though the historical interest only dates back to the year A.D. 460, when it was built by the Empress Eudoxia. The crusaders found it in ruins, since which time it had become buried, and its site lost. The whole plan of the church can now be distinctly traced, its pavements in many places remaining perfect, with the foundations of its side walls, fragments of columns, etc. The two most interesting features in connection with it, however, are a slab of fine limestone on which are the figures of the twelve apostles, each surrounded by a sort of canopy. They stand six each side of a central figure of a throned Christ. The figures are rather stiffly drawn and have long robes; although they were very distinct when first discovered, instead of moving the slab under shelter, it has been left exposed to the storms of winter; the result is that the outlines, which were in colour, can now scarcely be distinguished, and another year will completely efface them; besides this there is an inscription which has so far puzzled experts, though it is in Greek characters, but a good deal of it is effaced. There are also tombs in the vicinity, but though rock-cut they are evidently Christian.

Recent excavations within the city have also exposed a vast area, depressed considerably below the present level of the surface, which once formed the extensive establishment of the Knights Hospitallers, or Knights of St. John. It was given some time ago by the Turkish government to the Crown-Prince of Germany; since then the whole place has been cleared out with a view to its restoration on a grand scale, and it will doubtless form, when completed, one of the finest architectural monuments of modern date in Jerusalem. Several very deep and finely-vaulted cisterns, with arches fifty feet high, have been brought to light, besides cloisters, corridors, and vaulted chambers hitherto unknown. Some idea of the scale of the establishment which these celebrated knights possessed in Jerusalem may be gathered from the character and extent of the ruins, which cover an area of one hundred and seventy square yards, of which only half, unfortunately, belongs to the German government.

But the latest discovery, which has excited the greatest interest, is that of the inscription in the tunnel which connects the Virgin's Fount with the Pool of Siloam. The exploration of this tunnel, which is about six hundred yards long, involved great danger and difficulty. Colonel, now Sir Charles Warren, gives a most graphic picture of the horrors of his experience. For some distance the passage was only one foot four inches high, and as there was one foot of water, the explorers, who were crawling on their stomachs, naked, were submerged to their chins, having only four inches of breathing-room, with the additional danger of being drowned by the rising of the waters, which does not take place regularly. Often their mouths were under water, and a breath of air could only be obtained by twisting their faces up. To keep a light burning, to take measurements, and make observations under these circumstances was a work of no little difficulty; and yet, after crawling through mud and water for four hours, the honour of finding the inscription was reserved for a naked urchin of the town, who, some years after, announced he had seen writing on the wall. Whereupon Professor Sayce, and Herr Schick, and Doctor Guthe plunge naked into the muddy tunnel with acid solutions, and blotting-paper, and everything necessary to make squeezes, and emerge shivering and triumphant with the most interesting Hebrew inscription that has ever been found in Palestine, about which pamphlets and articles have been written, and scholars have wrangled, but which is now admitted to be as old as the time of Solomon, and it is agreed on all hands that the interpretation thereof is as follows:

“Behold the excavation. Now this is the history of the Tunnel. While the excavators were still lifting up the Pick towards each other, and while there were yet three cubits to be broken through, the voice of one called to his neighbour, for there was an excess in the rock on the right. They rose up. They struck on the west of the excavation. They struck, each to meet the other, pick to pick. And there flowed the waters from their outlet to the Pool, for a thousand two hundred cubits, and . . . of a cubit was the height of the rock over the heads of the excavators.” From this it will appear that there were two working-parties, working from opposite ends, and the indefatigable explorers have actually discovered the spot where the “excess” in the rock occurred and where they probably met. Most people who have not got Palestine exploration on the brain will, however, be content to take their word for it without going to see for themselves. Still it cannot be denied that an engineering work, executed in the time of Solomon, and an inscription describing it, is of the greatest interest. The date of the inscription can be determined with tolerable accuracy by a comparison of the letters with those on the Moabite stone and other of the most ancient inscriptions known.

THE THREE JERICHOS.

Haifa, Sept. 2.—The signs of progress to which I have alluded in former letters as being manifest in Judea are not confined to Jaffa and Jerusalem. The contemplated carriage-road to Jericho will be an immense boon to the crowds of pilgrims who flock annually to the Jordan. The first evidence of activity in this direction was at the Khan el-Ahmah. Here are the ruins of an old building. Fragments of walls and broken arches remain, and a deep well indicates that in former days it was inhabited—probably as a half-way house of entertainment. Whether this be so or not, I was glad to see a large force of stone-masons and builders actively engaged, under the superintendence of a European, in erecting a handsome khan or rest-house, which, considering that there is not at present a single habitation between Jerusalem and Jericho, with the exception of Bethany, distant only two miles from the former city, is much needed.

This place has always had an evil reputation for thieves since the days when the Good Samaritan performed his charitable offices to the plundered and beaten wayfarer. Indeed, it is at this very place that the spot is shown to the credulous pilgrim where the incident in the parable is said to have occurred, and the guide-books solemnly warn the tourist that he must be careful to be provided with an escort, because an English traveller, Sir Frederick Henniker, was attacked here by Bedouins, stripped, wounded, and left for dead in 1820. This is imputing stagnation to the Turkish government with a vengeance. It moves slowly, it is true, but the state of security has improved somewhat in sixty-five years. Six years ago I rode alone with a friend from Jericho to Jerusalem with no thought of danger. The Bedouins find it to their interest to keep up the traditions of the guide-books, and travellers continue to pay Bedouin sheiks blackmail which they might with perfect confidence keep in their pockets. I consider the road from Jerusalem to Jericho in the present day as safe as Broadway, at all events in the daytime.

It might not be safe to venture along it quite alone at night, but the same might be said of roads in other far more civilized countries. Nevertheless, the road in places is so wild and desolate that it may well appal the imagination of the timid traveller, notably so where it enters the Wady Kelt, a deep, narrow gorge, flanked by precipitous cliffs, honeycombed with caverns, above which rise white chalk hills, presenting a tangled network of narrow water-worn torrent beds with knife-like ridges between. Hundreds of feet below the path rushes a mountain torrent, which is none other than the traditional brook Cheritt. Here, if we leave the regular track, and make up our minds to follow a dizzy path cut out of the precipitous cliff, which winds back up the gorge, soon disappearing in the depth of its gloomy recesses, we plunge into one of the wildest and weirdest scenes that the ingenuity of nature has conceived in any country, so fantastic are the crags and so labyrinthine the gorges. The only travellers who ever thus diverge from the beaten route are Russian pilgrims, whose devotional instincts lead them to pay their homage to every accessible shrine, and to the credit of the Greek Church it must be said that it has contrived to perch shrines on spots which nature only intended for eagles.