HAIFA. (continued 8)

One of the most notable of these is the monastery which commemorates the cave, to which the path we are now following will lead us, in which Elijah is said to have been fed by the ravens. The monastery is literally hung on to the face of the precipice, and consists of a series of cells, and a hall supported on vaults through which lies the entrance. A few Greek monks live, like birds perched on the edge of a nest, in this singular abode, to which a chapel pinnacled on a rock is attached, dating, if we may judge from the character of the masonry, from about the twelfth century. Perhaps the little side chapel, with rock-cut chambers, and the vault containing ancient bones, to which a corridor covered with frescoes representing the Last Judgment leads, is the oldest part of these buildings, which were apparently constructed at three different epochs, as two layers of frescoes cover the wall, while the newest is in its turn covered by the piers supporting the ribs of the roof. Numerous caves, now inaccessible, are visible in the face of the cliff, which for a distance of about thirty yards is covered with frescoes now almost entirely defaced. In front of one of the cells is a heavy iron bar, from which, no doubt, in former days a ladder depended, the only means of access when these caves, now almost deserted, contained quite a population of hermits. This curious place is well worth a visit, and though lying so close to the tourist's route, I have not seen it described in any guide-book.

On reaching the base of the hills where the Wady Kelt debouches into the Jordan Valley, we find ourselves in the immediate presence of four ancient sites. Three of these are the sites of three different Jerichos, and one is the site of Gilgal. It is certain that the Jewish, the Roman, and the Byzantine Crusaders' Jericho occupied three different positions. The first has been identified with tolerable certainty as having existed where mounds of rubble mark its site, near the spring called in old times the Fountain of Elijah, and known now as the Ain es-Sultan. This was the Jericho of Joshua, and these mounds of rubble may contain the débris of the identical walls which fell to the sound of his trumpet. We pitched our tents at the beautiful and copious spring which must have supplied the old town with water, so as to have an opportunity of examining the neighbourhood at our leisure. The spring comes out beneath the mound on the east, and has on the west a wall of small masonry in hard cement. In this wall there is a small semicircular niche, probably intended to hold a statue of the genius of the spring. The reservoir from which the water gushes forth is about twenty by forty feet, and, though shallow, forms a delightful bath, with temperature slightly tepid. The high tumuli behind had been excavated by Sir Charles Warren, and I examined the traces of his cuttings. The mounds are formed for the most part of a light yellow clay, which, on being touched, crumbles into an impalpable powder. In some cases no strata could be discerned in the clay, in others, layers of brick, stone, and mortar were clearly visible. In another large mound, a little to the south, graves were found six feet below the surface. All these except one were of sun-dried brick. Bones appeared to have been thrown into these after the decomposition of the bodies. Altogether Sir Charles Warren dug trenches through no fewer than eight of the mounds, which form a conspicuous feature in the plain in which the ancient cities of Jericho were situated, as they stand to a height of about sixty feet above it; and the result at which he arrived was that they are formed by the gradual crumbling away of great towers or castles of sun-burned brick. Although in some cases shafts were sunk to a depth of forty feet, nothing was found except pottery jars, stone mortars for grinding corn, and broken glass. In one were found, eight feet below the surface, the remains of a large amphora, the neck, handles, and base of which were entire, and which must have stood about five feet high. Sir Charles Warren's working party consisted of one hundred and seventy-four men, and he thoroughly exhausted the subject.

Near the spring is a ruin which may have been that of a small Roman temple, a portion of an aqueduct, for the waters of the spring evidently irrigated a large extent of the plain, and near by traces of ruins, apparently Byzantine. Here are pillar-shafts, cornices, capitals, and other indications of a city of later date than those we have been considering.

The site of the Jericho of Herod, which existed at the time of Christ, was at the mouth of the Wady Kelt, deriving its water supply from that stream, and more than a mile from Ain es-Sultan. Here there are the remains of a bridge, foundations of buildings which were evidently Roman work, and two large artificial mounds, in one of which was found a rectangular chamber, the outer wall built of sun-dried bricks, and the interior of undressed stones cemented over.

The site of the third, or Crusading Jericho, was probably identical with that on which the modern village of Jericho now stands; but no ruins of importance remain there, though the whole surface of the plain between the sites of the three Jerichos is covered with remains which attest the denseness of the population which once inhabited it. That this should once have been a large inhabited centre must ever appear an astounding fact to the modern traveller who has suffered from the heat of the plain. Except during the winter months all this region is not only unbearably hot, but most insalubrious. The very Arabs desert it for the hillsides. It is possible that neglect and inattention to irrigation works may make the climate much less healthy than it was in former times, but nothing can be changed in the matter of temperature, and either the population must have deserted it for the mountains during summer or they must have been far better able to bear heat than their degenerate descendants. Sunk nearly twelve hundred feet below the level of the sea, and shut in from all breeze by lofty ranges of barren mountains on both sides, Jericho in summer must be one of the hottest places on the earth's surface. Even Jerusalem, which is four thousand feet above it, is pretty warm. On the other hand, Josephus vaunts the wonderful fertility of the place, and calls it “a region fit for the gods.”

Its magnificent and extensive palm groves were celebrated, but these have disappeared since the eighth century, and there is only one date-tree left. Still the abundance of the water, the richness of the soil, and the warmth of the climate, wonderfully adapt it to the growth of all tropical produce. All kinds of vegetables are in season all the year round. Grapes, which are trellised on high poles, as in Italy, grow to enormous size; indigo, cotton, and sugar would all flourish, but there are no people to cultivate them.

The remains of the old aqueducts testify to the skilful manner in which the ancients used their abundant water supply for the irrigation of this extensive plain. I counted altogether nine different ancient aqueducts. One or two of these are still utilized, and of late years a handsome bridge has been built in connection with one of them, but the engineering skill of the ancients holds its own with our more modern constructions. Many of the bridges by which these aqueducts span the ravines are very handsome. Some are on two tiers of arches, one above another. In places they are tunnelled through the hills. One bridge of massive masonry of large stones is one hundred and twenty feet long and thirty-five feet high, with pointed arches. There is one aqueduct eight miles long, consisting of a cemented channel two feet broad, and terminating in a handsome cemented cistern. It is carried over several bridges, one fifty feet long and thirty feet high.

I mention this system of aqueducts because I have never seen any account of Jericho in the records of travellers or in guide-books which does justice to them. They are important as showing how much money must have been spent in developing the resources of this plain, and what a garden it must have been in old times. So late as the thirteenth century we hear that the sugar-cane was cultivated around Jericho, and I believe that at this day there are few spots on the earth's surface which could be turned to more profitable account. Here all the products of the tropics could be raised without having to go to the tropics for them, and many fruits could be conveyed from here to a European market, which it would be impossible to preserve for the length of time which is now required to transport them from the tropics. At a comparatively small expense the ancient system of aqueducts could be repaired and the abundant water supply utilized, which is now left to stagnate in marshes and breed fever and pestilence. It is, in fact, impossible to appreciate the magnificent capabilities which this plain possesses and not feel convinced that in these days of civilized enterprise the question of their development is only one of time.

JERICHO—A NEW WINTER RESORT.

Haifa, Sept. 15.—When I last visited Jericho, six years ago, it consisted of a miserable village of mud huts, containing a population of mixed negroes and Bedouins, amounting at most to three hundred souls. I was astonished now to find that, of all places in the world, it was going ahead. There was a sort of boom going on; a very minute boom, it is true, but still it was progress, and there is no saying what it may lead to.

It is due entirely to the Russians, and I think that a progressive Jericho, owing to Russian enterprise, is a phenomenon worthy of remark. Indirectly it may be attributed to the passion Russian pilgrims have for bathing in the Jordan and carrying away bottles full of the water of that sacred stream. This passion for holy ablutions is one which a wise and far-seeing government has turned to profitable political account. It was only in obedience to the most ordinary instincts of humanity that some sort of accommodation should be provided for the pious crowds, consisting largely of old and frail women, who trudge thirty miles in a broiling sun to bathe in the Jordan, and who could not find a roof to shelter them, or a place in which to be fed, until they got back to Jerusalem. So a large, handsome, red-stone building, not unlike a state lunatic asylum, has been erected for their accommodation at Jericho. Here not only the Russian pilgrim, but the ordinary travelling lunatic, can find first-class accommodation.

The protection which so handsome an establishment afforded was all that was required to give a start to the place. Devout Russians, always acting under the auspices of a pious, intelligent, and paternal government, are beginning gradually to make Jericho a place of winter resort. They build little cottages there, surround them with gardens which supply them with most delicious fruit and vegetables, spend their summers in Jerusalem, and come down here in the winter and bathe in the Jordan to their hearts' content. In other words, in a religious and quite unostentatious way, Russia is quietly colonizing Jericho. The obnoxious word colony, so hateful to Turkish ears, is never pronounced, but I counted no fewer than twelve neat little whitewashed cottages, where a few years ago there was not one.

One of my travelling companions, who was an English medical man of some eminence, was so much struck with the climatic advantages of the place as a winter resort for consumptive patients that, now that good accommodation is to be found there, he has decided to advise invalids to try the effects of its air. Hitherto when one told a person “to go to Jericho” it was a polite way of intimating to him that he might go somewhere else, Jericho being the next hottest place known to that more distant region; but now we may tell our friends to go to Jericho in a spirit of benevolence, in the hope that it may restore them to health. What an unbearable place, by the way, Jericho would be if all the bores who have been metaphorically sent there had literally gone. As it is, I cannot imagine a more agreeable place for a person not absolutely dependent upon society to go to and spend a month or two in winter.

There is a peculiar softness and balminess in the air, not to be found elsewhere in the world, for there is no other place in the world eleven hundred feet below the sea-line. There is a wide, level, open plain to scamper across on horseback in all directions; there are thickets of tamarisk and nebk and bamboo swarming with wild boar, deer, gazelle, and other animals, some of them not to be found elsewhere, to delight the sportsman. There is the Jordan handy, with first-rate fishing to satisfy the most ardent angler; there is the Dead Sea to bathe in and boat on (only there are no boats) for persons whose tastes are aquatic. There is a flora which would be a source of never-ending interest to the botanist, for it is peculiar to this region; and the same remark applies, to some extent, to its ornithology and entomology. There are ancient ruins in all directions to satisfy the most inveterate archæologist, while the explorer has only to cross the Jordan, and in a few hours he will find himself in a region almost untrodden by the foot of the tourist, with all manner of interesting discoveries awaiting him. Then he is still comparatively in the world, for a smart ride of five hours will take him back to Jerusalem, and he need not be afraid of having to suffer hardship, for the fare in the Russian hospice is reported excellent, especially in the matter of milk and vegetables. My advice, then, to the invalid, the sportsman, the man of natural history, and the antiquarian, who may be looking out for a new winter resort, is, “Go to Jericho!” There is no particular reason that I can see why the Russians should have a monopoly of this charming spot, though we should be very much obliged to them for making it habitable. No doubt when the partition of “the sick man's” property, for which they have been waiting so long, takes place, they will put in a claim for Jericho.

Meantime I am glad to see that the government seem to be put upon their mettle. Not only have they built a handsome aqueduct across the ravine on which the modern village stands, but they have cleared a large expanse of the plain on the other side with a view of bringing it into cultivation and irrigating it by means of the said aqueduct. This plain extends in an unbroken level to the Dead Sea, and affords a pleasant six-miles scamper. It is the grazing-ground generally of large herds of camels, and on a hot and thirsty day they come in very opportunely. They are ever-ready if not ever-willing fountains, and there is nothing more refreshing than a drink of warm camels' milk. It is not easy to milk them, as they don't like strangers, and one is apt to get charged by a savage mother who mistakes one's intentions. Moreover, it requires some dexterity to milk a camel into a tumbler. In fact, this is difficult with any animal. I have had a battle with a nanny-goat on a bare Palestine hillside when I was thirsty, which ended in my utter discomfiture. The only plan is to backshish the goatherd or camelherd. It is an odd sight to see a young camel tugging away at one side of its mother and the camelherd tugging away at the other, and the resigned old female chewing her cud between them; it suggested to me a design for a picture which I sent to an artist friend, to be called “The Rivals.” With the Dead Sea and the burning hills of Moab for a background, I think it would make rather an effective picture.

However often I might visit the Dead Sea, I would always bathe in it, in spite of its stickiness afterwards. The sensation of floating without the slightest effort for an indefinite time when one is hot and tired is infinitely soothing.

The government intend building a bridge over the Jordan, and on my way back from visiting its proposed site I passed the much-disputed position of Gilgal, where the Israelites made their first camp in the Promised Land. This has but recently been identified by the ever-to-be-lamented Palestine explorer, Mr. Tyrwhitt Drake, who fell a victim to his zeal in the Jordan valley. Nothing is to be seen there now but some mounds, in which have been found pottery, broken glass, and tesseræ. It was for long the resting-place of the Ark and the Tabernacle. It was somewhere on this plain that Sodom and Gomorrah, “the Cities of the Plain,” were situated, and not to the south of the Dead Sea, as was formerly supposed, but their sites have been looked for in vain.

The great events of which the plain of Jericho had in early times been the scene, together with its traditional connection with the temptation of Christ on the Mount, which rises abruptly behind the Spring of Ain-es-Sultan, and actual interest with regard to his baptism in the Jordan and other events, attracted the Christians of a very early age to this part of the country. Hence from Justinian's time the plain began to be covered with monastic edifices, and the gorges and precipices of the enclosing mountains to be burrowed with hermit's caves and sacred shrines and chapels.

There is a tendency, on the part especially of the Greek and Armenian churches, to reoccupy some of these. Certainly of all the uncomfortable and dreary and broiling monasteries I ever saw, that of Kusr Hajlah, near the Dead Sea, now inhabited by half a dozen monks, claims pre-eminence. It is placed just on the edge of the saline plain, which exhales in summer a pungent heat that must render life almost insupportable. Nevertheless, it bears all the marks of having been an important mediæval monastery. The old walls still exist on three sides, and measure about forty yards by sixty. These contained two chapels above ground and one beneath in the vaults. The walls are still covered with frescoes, the designs of which are distinctly visible, as well as the inscriptions in Greek beneath them. They are evidently of Crusading times. There is a large cistern here, thirty feet by ten and twenty-four deep, which is in good preservation. So is another at the monastery of El-Yahud, thirty feet deep, with piers and arches also almost perfect. This monastery is distant about half an hour from the Jordan, and dates from the twelfth century. It stands on the site of one which was called the Monastery of St. John on the Jordan, but which was destroyed by an earthquake. The interest attaching to these monasteries, however, is comparatively slight. Upon archæological grounds they exhibit no very striking features, while from a religious point of view they are significant chiefly as showing how soon the religion of Christ became degraded into a system of useless asceticism, and, considering the tendency which is exhibited to return to it, the lamentable reflection is forced upon one that the true spirit of Christianity is as little understood now as it was in those days.

The monks who inhabit these buildings are in one sense as interesting as the buildings themselves, for one has only to converse with them to be transported to the Middle Ages. They are probably the only class of men who have remained absolutely unaffected by nineteenth-century civilization or modes of thought. They are like the toads that have been locked up for centuries in stone, and might in so far as their religious views are concerned be the identical individuals who, in the time of the crusaders, used to inhabit the cells they now occupy. From a psychological point of view, then, it is curious to converse with them on matters of faith and religion, for unless one has had personal experience of the degree of ignorance and superstition which are still to be found in a recluse of the Armenian Church, for instance, one could not credit the fact that such a being exists; and still represents a considerable class in the days in which we live.

The Arabs around Jericho are of a tribe called Abou Nuseir. They venerate a place called “The Place of Sepulchre of Dawar.” This personage was their ancestor, and the Abou Nuseir bury their dead in the tombs of the Dawar people. Arabs of any other tribe passing this spot make use of the expression, “Permission, oh, Dawar,” and the valley is sacred, and ploughs, grain, and other articles are deposited here for safety. The usual votive offerings—sticks, rags, bracelets—are found near the tombs. This tribe is scattered about in tents among the thorny bushes that cover the plain, amid which their flocks find good pasture. They are reputed to have a bad character, but we made great friends with them, owing to a circumstance which secured their gratitude.

While sitting by the fountain one afternoon we saw a number of Arabs carrying a man on a litter. This excited our doctor's curiosity, and we immediately hailed the procession. They told us they had a wounded man, and we replied we had a doctor, and they waited till we came up. In fact, an elderly man had just received a bullet in the leg from a friend with whom he had had a quarrel, which splintered the bone a little below the knee. The ball was still lodged in the leg. The doctor, who had made five military campaigns, and had probably dressed as many gunshot wounds as any man alive, was in his element. Instantly the man was taken to the nearest tents, splints of bamboo and bandages of flour and the white of an egg were speedily extemporized, while a large audience of wild—looking men, women, children, and dogs crowded around to watch operations.

The ball was probed for, not with any surgical instrument, for we were unprepared for any such emergency, but with the finger. The only instruments forthcoming were a penknife and a razor. The question was how to get the ball out with such appliances. The occasion was one which called for a display of genius, but the demand was not made in vain; with that simplicity which is its most marked characteristic, the doctor cut into the opposite side of the leg with the razor, and then pushed the ball clean through with his finger. The astonishment of the audience was excessive at the appearance of the crushed bullet, and the wounded man, a weather-beaten old Semite, who had bellowed lustily while the operation was going on, kissed the doctor's hand effusively, and consoled himself with coffee and cigarettes, in which we joined, while the bandaging and splinting was in progress. For a couple of days after this the doctor visited his patient twice a day amid the warmest expressions of gratitude on the part of the tribe, who forthwith brought all their sick to be cured, and the blessings which were invoked upon us echoed in our ears when we took our departure, till they died away in the distance.

A SHORT CUT OVER AN UNKNOWN COUNTRY.

Haifa, Oct. 1.—About half a mile in rear of our camp, at Ain-es-Sultan, rose a precipice a thousand feet high, which culminated in the lofty crest of a mountain called Quarantul. It derives its name from a tradition which identifies it with the mount upon which Christ was tempted for forty days in the wilderness. Of course, it is not the mountain at all, or, at all events, there is not the smallest particle of evidence to prove that it is, but that is a trifle where sacred sites are concerned. The face of this precipitous cliff is honeycombed with the black mouths of caverns. Sitting round our camp-fire at night we observed lights gleaming from the sheer side of the rock. Otherwise there was nothing to lead us to suppose that any of these caverns could be occupied by human beings. But these fires excited our curiosity, and we determined to pay the cave-dwellers perched so high above our heads a visit.

The operation turned out a more dizzy one than I had anticipated. No guide was necessary, for we could see the track winding like a thread up the face of the precipice. For the first three hundred feet or so it was all plain sailing, but then the ledge became horribly narrow. Occasionally the path was so steep that it dwindled into rock-cut steps. A false step would have sent you thundering hundreds of feet down into the abyss. At one place the height was so dizzy, the foothold so slight, that my nerve, which for this sort of work is not what it once was, began to give way, and I ignominiously squatted down, with my face turned to the rock, and tried to steady myself by forgetting that six inches behind me was a yawning chasm, from which a pebble might have been dropped plumb to the bottom. Retreat was as bad as advance, and more humiliating. For the rest of the way I went on my hands and knees, to the amusement of my companion, whose brain was not similarly affected. I don't know anything more disagreeable than the irresistible impulse which overtakes one sometimes to pitch one's self headlong over a precipice of this kind.

At last, to my inexpressible relief, I reached the mouth of a cave, into which I sprawled, panting, with thankfulness, but oppressed nevertheless with the horrible consciousness that I had the return voyage still to make. However, I dismissed this painful consideration for the moment, and applied myself to the examination of the curious grotto which we had reached. It was a sort of ante-chamber to a tunnel in the rock, passing through which we came upon some dreadful steps out on the face of the rock; but here there was a slight, rickety balustrade of wood, and at the top stood a greasy old monk, a sight which, under the circumstances, produced a more soothing effect upon my mind than such a sight usually does. This ecclesiastical worthy received us with gracious smiles, and led us through another tunnel into a sort of vestibule, which opened into a chapel which had been constructed at the mouth of a cave, so that the front facing the precipice was of masonry. Looking out of the window which had been constructed in this wall, a stone might have been dropped at least five hundred feet without touching anything till it reached the bottom. This chapel was gorgeously fitted up, thanks to the contributions of pilgrims whose heads must have been steadier than mine was. It had a handsomely decorated screen covered with sacred designs richly gilt. The apse was six feet in diameter, and the total length from the inside of the apse to the back of the cave about twenty-five feet, the breadth being about twenty. A door led out of this chapel into a narrow passage and up two or three steps into another cave, or niche, where there was a figure of a saint.

As far as I could understand from the monk, who spoke Greek, and very bad Italian, somewhere here was the spot where Christ stood when he was tempted. The walls of the chapel were covered with frescoes. The large, cavernous vestibule was the dwelling-place of the monk, with whom was associated a younger sort of acolyte, who lived in a cave overhead, which was reached by a flight of stone-cut steps from the back of the vestibule. There was also a small inner cave, fitted with a door, in which they kept their stores. The old man told me he had lived here like an eagle in an eyrie for ten years without even descending to the plain below. I wondered how he kept his health without taking exercise. All hermits who live on the sides of precipices should, I think, have treadwheels of some kind fitted up for them, or rotating cages like those in which Italian white mice take their exercise. I don't think our old friend, however, led a very ascetic life, so far as eating and drinking are concerned. He insisted on our staying to drink some excellent coffee, after which he produced a bottle of very good mastic, or spirit made from corn and flavored with anise-seed. I observed some fresh green salad and cauliflower on his side-table, which the Arabs bring him from their gardens at the foot of the hill. He had also an abundant supply of good Arab bread. His water is supplied from a cistern, of which there are several attached to the caves. He told me that eight of these were at present inhabited, but most of them were higher up. He was the spiritual superior of them all, and although there was another chapel in ruins, his was the only one in which service was performed. He invited me to continue my explorations to the caves higher up, but my mind was so much occupied with thinking how I was to get down as to exclude from it any idea of going higher up. Altogether this hermit was a jolly, hospitable old fellow, and it would be as cruel to pick him out of his hole and drop him into the busy world as it is to pick a periwinkle out of his shell with a pin.

Partially shutting my eyes and presenting my rear to the enemy, I crawled backwards down the giddy steps, and just at an uncomfortable corner came upon a jet-black man in a sort of priestly garb, who turned out to be an Abyssinian hermit. He has no connection with the establishment I had been visiting, having his own cell and his own church all to himself. His bosom was stuffed with manuscripts in Ethiopian characters. Under any other circumstances I would have endeavored to converse with so rare a specimen of ecclesiastical humanity; but how can a man engage in a theological discussion in an unknown tongue, hanging between earth and heaven on six inches of slippery rock? I felt rather inclined to say vade retro Satanas—not an inappropriate remark, considering the mountain I was on; and yet the poor man meant well, and, indeed, gave me an arm. He does not stick to his perch, however, like the old raven I had been visiting above, but usually resides in Jerusalem, visiting his cave during the forty days of Lent and at other stated periods.

We now determined to bid adieu to Jericho and the Mount of the Temptation and to strike across country into Samaria. This would take us over an unbeaten track and show us a country very imperfectly known. We trusted to finding our way by asking it, or by picking up local guides when we were utterly at a loss. By this means, although one runs a considerable risk of being benighted, or of having to scramble over almost impracticable mountain paths, you get a better chance of stumbling upon objects of interest than by following a more trodden route. For more than two miles we skirted in a northeasterly direction the base of the lofty cliffs of the Jebel Quarantul. On our right a copious steam, which has its rise in a fountain called Ain Duk, irrigated an extensive tract of land, which was green and well cultivated. If there had only been population enough to develop it properly it would be a most productive region. There were all the evidences that in ancient times its resources were not thus neglected. Everywhere the remains of stone watercourses and aqueducts were visible, one bridge in particular having no fewer than three tiers of arches one above another. The construction was ingenious and peculiar. At the bottom or narrowest part of the ravine which it spanned was one huge pointed arch. Immediately over this were four pointed arches, while at the side of them was a fifth, double the height of the others, the foundations of which were in the steep side of the ravine. Above these again were six more pointed arches which supported the aqueduct. Thus there were altogether twelve arches, and of these only two were the same size. The old Roman masonry of which they were composed was still in a very good state of preservation. Near this aqueduct were also the substantial remains of an old Roman road.

We now crossed, for about three miles, a fine undulating country covered with rich herbage, upon which large herds of cattle were feeding, and followed most of the way an ancient cemented channel, about four feet wide, which had formerly conveyed the waters of another stream to swell those which had their origin at Ain Duk, and all of which were carried over the aforementioned high level bridge. The stream which we were now approaching was also surrounded by cultivated and irrigated land. The whole of this plain in its richness and wealth of water far surpassed anything my expectations had led me to anticipate. Near the base of the mountains from which this fine stream issues are the remains of an ancient fortress situated on a high mound or tell, called Khurbet el Aujeh. The stream bears the same name. This is the sixth large stream which I have counted gushing from these mountains in a distance of about eight miles. My compass now told me that I must get up into the mountains if I intended to strike the Jerusalem and Samaria road at the point which I proposed. From information which I had taken before starting I expected to find the track in question ascending the valley from which the Aujeh issues, but we looked in vain for signs of any such track. Indeed, on forcing our way up it a little distance, we found that its precipitous sides closed in on us in a manner which effectually barred all further progress. We were wondering what to do in our dilemma, when, fortunately, we observed some peasants making some irrigating channels, and from them, after much chaffering, we obtained a guide. It is a singular thing that these poor peasantry, whose day's labor in the fields cannot be worth more than ten cents to them, will refuse fifty rather than leave what they are about and act as guides. On this occasion it was with great difficulty that I bribed a man with a dollar. To our surprise he took us straight to the base of an apparently impracticable cliff and proceeded to climb up it. As my experience of Palestine horses has convinced me that they can go almost wherever a man can, provided you leave them to find their own way, we proceeded to breast the limestone crags without misgiving, the only hardship being that the day was hot and we had to climb them on foot. To scramble up a thousand feet on a stretch by a path which was generally quite invisible is no slight operation, and one which, in this instance, it would have been impossible to perform without a guide, such impassable barriers did the rocks seem to present until the guide showed us the way to circumvent them. When we did reach what we fondly hoped was the summit, it was only to find a barren, undulating wilderness stretching before us, every now and then involving more climbing, for the elevation at which we were destined to arrive before the end of our day's journey was more than four thousand feet higher than the level from which we started.

If the scenery by which we now found ourselves surrounded was rugged, it was wild and grand in the extreme. Gloomy and precipitous gorges intersect these mountains in every direction. Not a sign of a habitation is visible anywhere, and with the exception of a single goatherd we did not meet a human being for hours. The vegetation was also very sparse, relieved, however, by great quantities of the fragrant white broom in flower, and cyclamen and scarlet anemones. Even in the days of the ancients it must have been a barren, uncultivated tract, but I was repaid for the scramble across it by one or two evidences of extreme antiquity of the greatest interest. The first of these consisted of four huge prostrate slabs of stone. They were evidently the blocks which had once formed a dolmen that had been overturned. Now, the interest of this lies in the fact that no dolmen, or signs of a dolmen, has ever yet been discovered in Judea, though eagerly searched for. There is only one doubtful one in Galilee, but they are abundant to the east of the Jordan. The reason assigned for this is that the tribes to the east of the Jordan did not obey the command, when they entered the land of Canaan, to “overturn the tables of stone,” to destroy the Canaanitish altars, and to break or smash their pillars; while the tribes to the west, especially Judah and Benjamin, were very particular in this regard.

Here, I think, is the only evidence which has yet been found in Judea of this interesting fact. This region was apparently one much dedicated to Baal worship. I saw many stone circles and one or two alignments of large stones, but the most curious was an enclosure about twenty-four yards square, formed of rough, unhewn stones, each weighing a ton or more, piled to a height of two or three upon each other. In the centre was a circle, eight feet in diameter, of large stones, with a single stone in the middle of it. This was a monument which evidently existed from pre-Judaic times; but, although I attempted hurriedly to take its bearings, I am afraid that in that wilderness of stone I should never be able to find it again.

We were pretty well worn out when we reached at last the village of Mugheir, the first inhabited place we had seen since leaving our camp near Jericho, and where we proposed to call a halt for the refreshment of man and beast. Meantime, as our tents and baggage had been sent by another road, we began to feel extremely doubtful as to when we should ever see them again.

EXPLORATIONS IN PALESTINE.

Haifa, Oct. 7.—The village of Mugheir, where we halted to rest after our long and weary scramble from the Jordan valley, is one of the most out-of-the-way places to be found in Palestine. It is not on the way anywhere, but a sort of Ultima Thule—the last spot where ground fit for cultivation is to be found. It stands on the margin of a charming little plain, where there is a fine olive grove. Indeed, looking westward, the prospect is cheery enough, but eastward it is wild rock, black, gloomy gorges, or less precipitous but equally barren valleys. The sheik received us with great cordiality, albeit quite unused to the visits of travellers, and spread before us such fare as he could, flat Arab bread, roasted eggs, curdled goat's milk, and figs, butter, and honey. I mention the last three together because you eat them together. You first dip your dried fig into the butter, you then dip it into the honey, and then put it into your mouth. I never tried the combination before, but it is not bad. He also gave us a hot compound of flour and sugar boiled together, which he seemed to think a great deal of, but, beyond being sweet and sticky, it had no especial merit. His wife was the fairest woman I ever saw for a pure-blooded fellahah peasant. In fact, she could not have been fairer had she been a blue-eyed, light-haired Swede or German.

After satisfying my hunger I went to look for antiquities, and found several rock-cut tombs and cisterns, a fine rock-hewn wine-press, and four towers all in a good state of preservation, and three of them inhabited. They measured thirty feet square and as many in height. The basement stones were massive enough to be the masonry of a former period, but exactly of what date I am unable to say, possibly not earlier than the crusades; though I found some foundations of walls which I am inclined to ascribe to a much older date. There has been probably a town or village here from time immemorial, though I am unable to identify it with any Biblical site.

The sheik insisted upon accompanying us himself as guide to a place called Singil, which we had fixed upon as our night quarters. Our way led us through a small, depressed plain. After passing some remains of no special interest we reached a very remarkable ruin, called El-Habs. It is a tower on a rocky scarp, with walls built partly of masonry, partly of rock, which measure about sixty feet by thirty. The stones of which these walls are composed are of immense size, measuring from twelve feet up to eighteen feet in length, with a height of from three to four feet each. The masonry is thus quite equal to the average size of the temple stones in Jerusalem. The tower has two entrances. Near it are the remains of another large building of about one hundred feet square outside measurement, and with walls six feet thick. Its interior is divided into four parallel chambers, running east and west, of various breadth. One of the partition walls has archways through it, with piers between. All round these buildings are the foundations of ancient walls and houses and bell-mouthed cisterns. The whole place bears the marks of extreme antiquity. It has been examined by the officers of the Palestine Survey, but is not mentioned in any guide-book, and I am unable to form any conjecture in regard to it.

Our road now lay through a fertile plain, called The Meadow of the Feast, possibly in some connection with the yearly feast which used to be held by the Jews in old times at Shiloh, from which historical site we were not far distant. It is a comfort now and then to come upon a Biblical site about the identity of which there is not the slightest doubt, and such is the case with Seilun, the modern name for Shiloh. It stands in an extremely retired valley, and on our way to it we put up the third batch of gazelles we had started in one day. This was the spot where the Tabernacle was first permanently set up in Canaan, and where the Israelites assembled to allot the Promised Land. They were probably encamped hard by on The Meadow of the Feast, across which we had just been riding, and it was probably on this meadow, while the maidens were dancing at the festival in honour of the ark, that the remnant of the Benjamites concealed themselves among the vineyards on the hillsides and carried off two hundred maidens. At present it is impossible to be certain whether any of the remains now visible existed at the time when the Tabernacle was there. The ruins which first strike the eye on the hillside are evidently those of a comparatively modern village, with here and there fragments of masonry which may date back to Crusading times. Then there is a low, square building supported by two rows of columns, which has been used as a mosque, but in early times may have been a Christian church; but the most remarkable monument is a square building of which only the walls remain. It is apparently of three architectural periods, and it is just possible that the oldest may have been Jewish. The original walls have been added to by a sloping scarp having been built against them, so that the wall, which is about fourteen feet high, is nine feet thick at the bottom, and about three feet thick at the top. Inside are some fragments of columns, capitals, and a door lintel, which has recently fallen from the principal entrance, on which are carved two wreaths, flanked by two double-handled pitchers, and in the centre an amphora.

There are no inhabitants at Shiloh now, so we pushed on to Singil, a village situated about three thousand feet above the sea-level, and commanding a most magnificent view. The villagers here showed me some foundations of what they said had been an old castle built by a certain King Sinbil, but I strongly suspect that they substituted the b for a g, as the village takes its name from a certain Crusading hero, who was afterwards canonized and became St. Gilles, and that here he built himself a castle. The natives also sent me into a cave on a wild goose chase after an inscription, which, after much scrambling with lighted tapers, I failed to find.

We had now left Judea, and were entering ancient Samaria, which is governed, not from Jerusalem, but Damascus, the seat of government being Nablous, a large town of about twenty thousand inhabitants, whose principal industry is the manufacture of soap, with which they supply almost the whole country. The town is squeezed in between the lofty hills of Ebal and Gerizim, both of which are over three thousand feet above the sea-level. This is the valley of Shechem. Nothing can exceed in picturesqueness the situation of this place and the beauty of its surroundings, especially when the almond and peach trees are in bloom in the valley. The steep hillsides seem to be a mass of huge cactuses; these are used to line the terraces of the vineyards as hedges, but as they are great absorbers of vitality from the soil, I should think they must impoverish the land. In the autumn these ungainly plants are thickly covered with fruit about the size of a large fig, when ripe of a bright red. They are full of small seeds, but sweet and refreshing. The natives gorge themselves upon them, as they are esteemed wholesome, but they are traps to the unwary and inexperienced of the most painful kind, being covered outside with diminutive and almost invisible prickly hairs. The first time I ever tried to eat one I filled my mouth with these unpleasant little spikes, and spent half an hour with my tongue out, while a friend was engaged with a pair of tweezers extracting each individual irritant, but then he only partially succeeded, and for the rest of the day I felt as if I had tried to swallow half a chopped-up hair-brush. The natives pick the fruit by digging a pronged iron into them, with which they twitch them off the stalk; they then roll them on the ground, so as to get the hairy prickles off, and then carefully peel them. The great green leaves have spikes like pins half an inch long upon them, which inflict a most vicious and poisonous prick. I once tumbled into a cactus bush, and really suffered severely for many hours. Under these circumstances it is something amazing to see camels munching these leaves, prickles and all, with apparent relish; a donkey eating thistles is a joke to it.

Nablous is also surrounded by extensive olive groves, and the oil is celebrated throughout Palestine; it also exports cotton of native growth. In fact, for a Moslem city, it may be considered an enterprising and go-ahead place. At present it lacks the prime necessity of a carriage road to the sea-coast. All its exports and imports have to be conveyed on the backs of camels. If the long-projected railway from Haifa to Damascus could ever be consummated, a wagon road could easily be constructed in connection with it, and Haifa would then become the port of Nablous, instead of Jaffa, which is slightly nearer to it. With the exception of the long central street, which forms the principal bazaar, the streets as a rule are more gloomy and tunnel-like than most Oriental towns, though there are many handsome stone houses, and the building of new ones afforded evidence of the growing wealth of the inhabitants. The consequence is an improvement in the reputation of the population, who have in former times been notorious for their turbulent fanaticism, but of late years the Turkish government has succeeded in establishing its authority on a firmer foundation and making its exercise felt. Indeed, the superficial traveller in the Turkish empire, who only sees the defects of the existing system of administration, is hardly a fair judge of the progress that has been made in a certain direction unless he is able to compare it with what has been.

There can be no doubt that during the last twenty years a great change has been worked in the establishment of law and order and in the security of life and property. If oppression has the disadvantage of grinding the people and making their lives miserable, it, at all events, has the merit of intimidating them and restraining them from acts of violence and crime. If the unjust judge and extortionate tax-gatherer are taking the heart out of the people, they are taking the pluck out of them, too, and one result is that the stranger can now travel in safety through regions where he was once sure of being plundered and possibly murdered, and walk unmolested through Moslem crowds, where formerly he might have been subjected to insult. Nor is this due to the direct action of any foreign power or to the exercise of any diplomatic pressure in favor of reform. On the contrary, the influence of foreign powers was never so low as it is at present, and I am convinced that all attempts on the part of foreign powers to enforce reforms on Turkey only hinder them. The influence of the sultan and his government is not to be maintained throughout Islam by any action in obedience to the dictates of Christian powers. They resent it, just as the South used to resent the interference of the North in the matter of slavery; but this does not prevent their being alive to any advantages which accrue to the empire by enforcing, as far as may be, a respect for law and order; and, so far as it is possible, to develop its resources without being beholden to foreign capital, or increasing the power and influence of the native Christian population. The difficulty is that the instinct of the Moslem is not in favor of progress, and that he is always outstripped in the race by his Christian neighbour.

Again, the country can only be developed through the education and enlightenment of the people; but where an administrative system is in itself corrupt and unenlightened, the education and illumination of the masses means their endowment with the faculty of perceiving abuses, and possibly with a determination to resist them; and this danger is so great that it must be averted, even at the cost of the national prosperity. For this reason the government sets its face against the education of Moslems in Christian schools, not because they are afraid of the Moslems being converted to Christianity—there is not the slightest danger of that—but because they are afraid of their imbibing Western ideas of social and political life, which are opposed to the conditions which characterize the existing administration of affairs. In fact they are not opposed to reform, but it must be a reform not suggested from without, nor imposed upon them from within; it must neither be in obedience to diplomatic pressure nor to popular clamour; it must be a reform of their own initiative, and as any such reform, to be effectual, must begin by the authorities with whom it is to originate reforming themselves, the process seems almost hopeless. Still, as I have already remarked, there has distinctly been change, and change for the better, so far as security for life and property and the extension and enforcement of official authority are concerned, during the last twenty years—security of property to the people, be it understood, from their own mutual plundering propensities. Whether this security extends to the demands of the tax-gatherer, and how far it has conduced to their own material welfare and happiness, is quite another question.

SACRED SAMARITAN RECORDS.

Haifa, Oct. 15.—The chief interest connected with Nablous lies in the fact that it is the residence of the remnant of those Samaritans who were colonized here by Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, when he carried away the children of Israel captive. From the Biblical record (2 Kings xvii.), it would appear that the new settlers were drawn from mixed nationalities and various cities within his dominions. Some came from Babylon itself, some from Hamath, a town between Damascus and Aleppo, and others from Cuthah—probably the Kutha of Arabian geographers, a town and district between the Tigris and Euphrates—some from Ava, which has been identified with the modern Hit, and some from Sepharvaim, once the famous city of Sippara, both cities on the Euphrates, in lower Mesopotamia.

We are also told that the new colonists petitioned the King of Assyria to be taught the religion of the Jews, and that he sent them a Jewish priest to teach it to them, and that they added it on, after a curious fashion, to the various forms of idolatry which they had imported from their different localities, and hence established a mongrel sort of worship, which became afterwards purified, but which nevertheless rendered them especially obnoxious to the Jews of Judea, all the more so because they intermarried with the remnant of the tribes of Israel which had escaped the captivity, thus forming a race as mongrel as their religion. It is about twenty-six hundred years since this event took place, but the ancient worship of the Samaritans exists to this day; so also does the bitter antagonism which they and the Jews entertain for each other.

This is the oldest national feud, probably, in existence, but is as fresh as if it only originated yesterday. Like the Jews, the Samaritans have managed to survive all the vicissitudes of fate, but with the difference that a small remnant has clung through them all to the locality in which they were originally established, though they have dwindled in numbers to one hundred and sixty souls. As an ethnological fraction of antiquity they are, perhaps, the most interesting group of people extant. The first one I ever made acquaintance with was a young man who called upon me in a mysterious manner one day in Haifa. He handed me a document in Arabic, in which, after stating that for certain reasons, which he implied were by no means discreditable to him (he was an outcast from his own people), he implored charity, and requested me “to cast upon him a regard of compassion and benevolence.” The document further said:

“All that I have inherited from my parents and ancestors is a manuscript written in ancient Hebrew, nine hundred years old, containing two chapters of the Bible, including the commandments, which I beg to offer you, in the hope that you will recompense me in return by a sum which will relieve my distress.”

He signed himself “Shellabi, the son of Jacob, the Samaritan.” Now, I knew that Jacob es Shellabi was once the spiritual head of the sect, for he had been in London under the title of “The Prince of the Samaritans,” and the romance which attended his style and dignity had, it was reported, even captivated a fair Englishwoman, who was willing to become a Samaritan for his sake. Fortunately for her “the Prince” was already married, a fact which I believe he only divulged on his return to his native land.

Anyhow, here was the son of a prince in distress, and here was an extremely ancient and curious manuscript for sale. The youth looked such a scamp, however, that he did not enlist my sympathies. I suspected that he had lost his money by gambling, which proved afterwards to be the case; so when he said he considered the manuscript worth ten dollars I offered him one dollar, on which he retired indignantly. A few days later, however, he reappeared, took his dollar thankfully, and I retain possession of the manuscript. It is on coarse parchment of a yellowish-brown color, two feet six long, and fifteen inches wide. It was evidently originally longer, but has been torn off. One edge has been subjected to the action of fire. The writing is in transverse columns, each column thirteen inches long by five wide, and containing from sixty to seventy lines. The characters are of the old Samaritan type, small, rude, and irregular, differing in many important respects from the ancient Hebrew, and illegible to a good modern Hebrew scholar to whom I have shown it. I have no doubt, however, that it could be deciphered by an expert in such matters, who would also be able to establish from the formation of the characters its antiquity.^[6]

This incident excited my interest in the Samaritan question, and when I was at Nablous I visited the synagogue, examined the ancient Thorah, or book of the law, and have since looked into the subject generally. The ancient synagogue was appropriated by the Moslems some centuries ago. The modern building is a small, unpretentious, oblong structure. The walls are rough and whitewashed, and the roof is vaulted with two little domes in the centre. The mizbah, or altar, is about five feet square, covered with a veil of yellow silk. Within are receptacles for the sacred books. Of these the most valuable are never shown to strangers. One or two persons have, however, seen the most ancient, which the Samaritans claim to have been written by Abishua, the son of Phinehas, thirty-five hundred years ago. It is only seen by the congregation once a year, when elevated above the priest's head on the Day of Atonement.

The Thorah was rolled round a cylinder of wood similar to those used in ordinary Jewish synagogues, and I was gratified to observe that it exactly resembled the fragment in my possession. It was evidently very ancient. The priest who showed me the synagogue was a remarkably handsome, dignified-looking man about forty years old. I asked him whether he was the chief priest. He said he was, and that Jacob Shellabi no longer had any position among them. I then said I had obtained a piece of manuscript from his son, to which he made no reply, but at once turned the subject. I suspect the youth was a mauvais sujet, who committed an act of sacrilegious theft before leaving the paternal mansion, and who did not, therefore, deserve more than he got.

Now, with regard to the sacred books which I did not see: They are in some respects in the highest degree interesting, as throwing light upon the Biblical record. In the first place, from what is known of the most ancient version, claiming to be by Abishua, Gesenius and other great scholars have given it as their opinion that if it could be collated, it would be found in many cases to preserve the sense, which has been lost in the Jewish version. This opinion is founded upon the results of such collation as has been possible with Samaritan texts which have fallen into the hands of scholars.

Besides the most ancient roll there are three other books known to be in the possession of the Samaritans.^[7] These are the Samaritan book of Joshua, the Samaritan Chronicle, and the so-called “Fire-tried Manuscript.” The Samaritan book of Joshua probably dates from the thirteenth century. It was published at Leyden about forty years ago from an Arabic manuscript in Samaritan character, and is thought to have been compiled from an early Samaritan and three later Arabic chronicles. It is invested with a peculiar interest from the fact that it helps to supply a remarkable lacuna in the Biblical record, which does not appear to have received the attention it deserves from Biblical students. It is, in fact, evident that a large portion of the present book of Joshua is missing. That book purports to be an account of the conquest of Canaan and its allotment among the twelve tribes. Under these circumstances it is most remarkable that we have no account of the conquest of Samaria, though the campaigns in the south, including the siege and taking of seven cities, and the invasion of Galilee, and the defeat of the league of six kings of Northern Palestine, are fully described. Then we have no list of royal Samaritan cities, though all of them in the other parts of the country are carefully enumerated. We have no description of the boundaries of the two tribes to which Samaria was allotted, nor any list of the cities awarded to them. Some of the Levitical towns mentioned in Chronicles as belonging to Samaria are not to be found in Joshua. It will be found also that, taken as a whole, there are only about forty Samaritan places noted out of some four or five hundred places in Western Palestine.

The Jewish hatred of the Samaritans rose in the early Christian period to so great a pitch that the Mishnic doctors avoided even mentioning the name of Samaria. Thus, in the Talmud only some half-dozen Samaritan towns are noticed. In describing Palestine the Mishna divides it into Judea, Galilee, and Peræa, leaving out all mention of Samaria. It is just possible that long before this an omission may have been purposely made by the early transcribers of the Biblical book of Joshua in regard to Samaria. At all events, the meagre record which it contains is richly supplemented by the Samaritan book of Joshua, which brings down the history of Israel from the date of the conquest to the time of Samuel, whose predecessor, Eli, was, from a Samaritan point of view, the earliest schismatic, and the founder of a new and heretical temple at Shiloh in opposition to that built by Joshua on Mount Gerizim. The divine glory rested upon Gerizim for two hundred and sixty years, or during the reign of nine successors of Joshua, the schism between the children of Judah and the orthodox, as the Samaritans call themselves, dating from the time of Sin, after the death of Samson.

The book opens much in accordance with the Biblical narrative, but no less than four chapters are devoted to the history of Balaam and his death, being an enlargement of one Biblical verse. The conquest of Shechem by Joshua contains an account of the miraculous discomfiture of the enemy, and of a letter sent by him announcing it to Eleazar, the priest, fastened to the wings of a dove. It contains also the account of a new league against the children of Israel under a king called Saubac, in conjunction with the kings of five other towns, which can all now be identified. A thrilling narrative of the battle which takes place between Joshua and these kings at El-Lejjun, on the ancient Megiddo (Armageddon), is also given. With this episode the history of the war ends. The chief value of the book lies, however, in the light it throws upon the ancient geography of Samaria. Out of a total of thirty-one places mentioned in it, thirteen are within the confines of Samaria, and most of these are not to be found in the Bible.

The Samaritan chronicle goes back to the beginning and gives the astronomical reckoning from Adam. Some of its topographical details are of much value. Thus it contains a list of twenty-two towns where the high-priest who succeeded Tobiah resided, all being apparently in Samaria as far as they can be identified. It is known that in the second and third centuries the Samaritans were in a very flourishing condition, and had colonies in Egypt, and even a synagogue in Rome. The chronicle gives their possessions in Palestine as allotted by the High-Priest Baba the Great, about one hundred and sixty years after the destruction of Jerusalem. This description is interesting, as it seems to include all Palestine, with the exception of Judea proper, to the mountains of which the Jews are confined.

At a later period the chronicle gives a list of those towns which were inhabited by the Samaritans after the Hegira. This is a period when very little is known of this nation. The places mentioned extend nearly over the whole of Palestine outside of Judea, and colonies are also mentioned in Damascus, Cairo, and Baalbek. There is a ruin about five miles from Haifa called Kefr Samir, or the town of the Samaritans, which I occasionally visit to grub for inscriptions, which was one of their colonies. Those at Gerar and Gaza lasted till the present century, but none are to be found now outside of Nablous. It is only to be expected that the chronicle should centre all the holy places of the Samaritans at Shechem or Nablous.

The fifth article of the Samaritan creed was the assertion that Gerizim was the chosen abode of God upon earth. Here Adam and Seth raised altars; here Melchisedec, servant of the Most High God, was met by Abraham—for Gerizim the Samaritans hold to the present day is the highest mountain in the world, the only one not covered by the flood. Here Abraham offered up Isaac, the very spot being shown on the eastern brow of the mountain; and, indeed, as Dean Stanley has argued, it is as likely to be here as at Jerusalem, as Josephus and the Talmudists affirm. Gerizim was also the site of Jacob's vision, and, finally, it was on Gerizim, and not on Ebal, just opposite, as stated in the Bible, that, according to the Samaritans, Joshua erected, first an altar, afterwards the tabernacle, and lastly a temple.

The fourth and last of the known ancient sacred books of the Samaritans is the fire-tried manuscript. It consists of two hundred and seventeen leaves, containing the law from the twenty-ninth verse of the first chapter of Genesis to the blessing of Moses in Deuteronomy. It is much worn; the letters are not so small as those of Abishua's roll, nor as large as those of the later roll. The hand is steady and uniform, and the character of the letters indicates that it is of very ancient date. A note at the end of the book of Numbers connects the manuscript with a story in the Samaritan book of Joshua. It runs:

“It came out from the fire by the power of the Lord to the hand of the King of Babel in the presence of Zerubbabel the Jew, and was not burned. Thanks be to the Lord for the law of Moses.”

THE TEN LOST TRIBES.

Haifa, Oct. 25.—In my last letter I gave some account of the ancient literature of the Samaritans, which is still extant and in their possession. The people themselves, however, are such an interesting ethnological fragment of a remote past that there are many points connected with their origin and history which are worthy of consideration, the more especially as they bear upon a problem which has, of late years, exercised a singular species of fascination over a certain class of minds. I refer to the so-called “lost” ten tribes. It may be a disappointment to the Anglo-Israelites to suggest that they are more likely to be found in the neighbourhood of the country they were carried from than in England; but, under the circumstances, it is certainly a more rational and less strained hypothesis, as I think may be clearly shown by a reference to existing traditions, facts, and records.

It would appear from the recently discovered cuneiform tablets which are now under the investigation of Assyrian scholars, that, while they substantially afford a remarkable confirmation of Biblical history, there are certain discrepancies in regard to the capture of Samaria and the carrying away of the Israelites into captivity, which make it somewhat difficult to determine the exact date and nature of that event. The complete recovery of the records of Shalmaneser (IV.), who no doubt did besiege Samaria, will clear this up, and throw light upon the records of his successor, Sargon, who seems to have succeeded to the throne about the time of the capture of the city, after a three years' siege, and who in that case would be the monarch who actually carried off the Israelites. If this were so, then, according to the date of his accession, the captivity must have occurred before the invitation which Hezekiah sent out through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh inviting Israelites to the Passover at Jerusalem, where we are informed that large numbers attended it (2 Chron. xxx. 18); and it would put beyond a doubt, what is in fact most probable, that Sargon, in carrying away the Israelites captive, did exactly what Nebuchadnezzar also did not long afterwards, when he carried off the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and left a large population of the poorer classes behind, who were not worth taking.

Indeed, when one comes to consider the population which we know to have inhabited Samaria and Galilee at this time, it seems incredible that any conqueror would have burdened himself with a host which must have numbered at the lowest estimate over a million souls and probably a great many more; and this conjecture is borne out by the fact that we read, in Jeremiah xli. 5, that a deputation of fourscore Israelites came to Jerusalem after its destruction, or more than a hundred years after the captivity of the Israelites. That the Israelites thus left intermarried with the colonists sent from Assyria on the adoption by these latter of the Jewish religion, under the instruction of a priest sent for the purpose, is extremely probable. The Samaritans themselves, however, deny all intermixture with the colonists, and maintain they are pure-blooded Israelites; and in confirmation of this we may mention their marked Jewish type of countenance, their possession of an ancient text of the books of Moses, and their observance of the Jewish Passover according to the most ancient forms of that rite.

The Samaritan account of their origin and composition is, as may be supposed, diametrically opposed to that contained in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. They assert that at the time when the two tribes returned from the captivity a large number of the ten tribes also returned to Samaria under Sanballat, called by Nehemiah a Horonite, but the Samaritans call him a Levite. The Samaritan account goes on to state that while the two tribes under Zerubbabel repaired to Jerusalem, the rest of the congregation, three hundred thousand in all, besides youth, women, children, and strangers, were led to Gerizim, where they established the Temple. Then came the quarrels between the Jews at Jerusalem and the Israelites at Samaria about the building of the Temple; and the accounts contained in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah and the Samaritan records are not very discordant. Making allowance always for the fact that the Biblical books do not admit that the Samaritans were Israelites at all, though they admit that Sanballat's son was married to the daughter of Eliashib, the Jewish high-priest, while this latter is stated to have allied himself with Tobiah, who was a Samaritan priest. This caused great displeasure to Nehemiah, and increased the schism, but it goes, too, far to confirm the supposition that Sanballat and Tobiah were Israelites.

The Samaritans are, indeed, in the peculiarities of their doctrine, almost identical with the original Jewish party—the Karaite and Sadducean sects. They are even called Sadducees in Jewish writings, and their denial of the resurrection was, like that of the Sadducees, based on the declaration that nothing was to be found in the law of Moses on the subject. Again, their version of the law is closely similar to that of the Septuagint, which was a translation authorized by a Sadducean high-priest from a text differing from that finally established by the Pharisees. It is often supposed that the Samaritans borrowed their doctrine from the Sadducees, but it seems more rational to admit that they were a sect originally identical, because originally Israelite. The animosity of Josephus, who was a Pharisee; the fierce denunciation of the Talmud, written by Pharisees; the destruction of the Gerizim temple by Hyrcanus, also a Pharisee—all combine to indicate that the Jewish hatred had nothing to do with any foreign origin of the race, but was rather roused by the religious differences of a people whom they knew to be their own kith and kin.

If we adopt this theory the fate of the ten tribes is no longer a mystery. As we know that before the captivity they were addicted to strange gods and strange marriages, it is not improbable that a large proportion lost their tribal identity while in captivity by intermarrying with the people by whom they were surrounded, and became merged with them. It is also probable that a certain number, according to the Samaritan chronicle three hundred thousand (but it need not be so large a number), returned from their captivity at the time when the two tribes received permission from Cyrus to return. It is also likely that others who still retained their religion did not return, and are the ancestors of certain Hebrew nomads still wandering in the desert. The Jews from Yemen, for instance, assert that they are of the tribe of Dan, while there are Jewish shepherds in Mesopotamia whose ancestry seems not distinctly traceable to the two tribes.

The fact that those who returned to Palestine have dwindled numerically to so small a number is no reason why they should not have been at one time a considerable nation, as indeed we know they were from their subsequent history. They made serious revolts against the Romans in the time of Pilate, and again during the reigns of Vespasian and Severus, but under Hadrian they assisted the Romans against the Pharisees. In the sixth century they attacked the Christians and put the Bishop of Nablous (or, as it was then called, Neapolis) to death, being at that time spread over Egypt and the whole of Palestine, except the hills of Judea. Clinging to the unity of God, they hold Moses to be the one messenger of God, and Gerizim to be the earth's centre, as it is the shrine of their faith. In this they are supported by the fact that while blessings and curses are invoked on the two Samaritan mountains in the books of Moses, there is no mention in those books of Jerusalem.

They also believe in a state of future retribution, and of angels and devils as ministers of God in the unseen world. They look for a Messiah who is to be of the sons of Joseph, and they hold that he is now on earth, though not yet declared. His name is to begin with the letter M. His titles are Taheb, “the restorer,” and El-Mahdi, “the guide.” Under his direction the congregation will repair to Gerizim. Under the famous twelve stones they will find the ten commandments, and under the stone of Bethel the golden vessels of the Temple and the manna. After one hundred and ten years the Prophet, who is considered inferior to Moses, is to die, and be buried beside Joseph, whose tomb they show in the valley. Soon after, on the conclusion of seven thousand years from its creation, the world is to come to an end.

The Samaritans keep the Feast of the Passover on Gerizim, near the ruins of the ancient temple; here they pitch their tents, and at sunset they slay sheep and bake them for several hours in a huge oven in the ground, which is lined with stone. The men are girded with ropes, with staves in their hands and shoes on their feet, as though prepared for a journey. They generally eat standing or walking. After the women have eaten, the scraps are burned and a bonfire kindled and fed with the fat. The rest of the night is spent in prayer, and the following day in rejoicing. Besides this, the Feast of Tabernacles is also held on the mountain, where they construct arbors of arbutus branches. The Feasts of Pentecost and of Purim and the Day of Atonement are also observed.

The mountain is very barren, rising abruptly to a height of one thousand feet above the valley in which the town is situated. The ruins which are to be found upon it are described in the guide-books, so I shall only allude to what is new in regard to them. Considerable excavation was carried out here by Captain Anderson under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Fund, and plans made of what remains of the Fortress of Justinian, which is one of the most valuable monuments of Byzantine art in Palestine, and of the church said to have been built by Zeno. The twelve stones, traditionally said to have come from the Jordan, were also excavated, and found to be large, unhewn masses of rock placed upon two other courses of stone rudely dressed and not squared. Some paved platforms were also laid bare. These, together with the twelve stones, may possibly have formed part of the temple built by Sanballat on Gerizim. Curiously enough, there is a sacred rock here, with a cave under it, not very unlike the rock and cave over which the Mosque of Omar is built in the Haram at Jerusalem, and with the same traditions attached to them. There is also a large ruin on Mount Ebal, enclosing an area ninety-two feet square, with walls twenty feet thick; but the excavations which were made here were attended with no result, and conjecture is at fault as to what it may have been.

Perhaps the most interesting spots at Nablous are Jacob's well and Joseph's tomb, but this from the point of view purely of association. Where sites which can be identified with any certainty are so rare, these two spots stand out preeminently as places about which there is a unanimity of agreement and force of tradition which go far to confirm their authenticity. They are venerated by the members of every religious community in Palestine. Here also we may look with almost positive certainty upon the position taken up by the Israelites when they stood “half over against Gerizim” and “half over against Ebal,” to listen to the reading of the law. Great pains have also been taken to discover the position of “the great stone” which Joshua “set up under an oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord” when he made his covenant with the people in Shechem immediately before his death, and not altogether without success. The exactitude with which the tombs of Joshua, Eleazar, and Phinehas are described in the sacred record enables us to regard the ancient sepulchres which are still pointed out as theirs with far less skepticism than usually accompanies our notice of such memorials of the dead.

Altogether, the extreme antiquity of Shechem as a site, and the important events of which it was the scene in the earliest period of Jewish history, invest it with an interest denied to every other locality in Palestine, excepting Jerusalem itself, while the well of Jacob must ever be memorable—if, as was most likely, it was the spot where Christ met the woman of Samaria—for perhaps the most remarkable of all his utterances. When we remember the religious fanaticism which characterized both Jew and Samaritan, and the bigoted prejudice which envenomed the inveterate hatred they felt for each other, and which turned principally upon the rival claims for sanctity of Jerusalem and Gerizim, it seems almost incredible that a Jew could have been found, and he a carpenter, gifted with such lofty courage and such high spiritual intuition that he should dare to say: “Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither on this mountain, nor at Jerusalem, worship the Father. They that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

RESEARCHES IN SAMARIA.

Haifa, Nov. 3.—While at Nablous I received information that a large piece of ancient sculpture had been discovered by a man in excavating some foundations. I procured a guide, and proceeded to his dwelling. It was evidently the residence of a man of means, and stood in a large courtyard, at the entrance to which I knocked for admittance. After hammering for some time a voice from within asked who I was and what I wanted. On my shouting a reply, I was abruptly told to go away, and all was silent. Now, the accounts I had heard of this antiquity stimulated my curiosity to such a degree that, in addition to the indignation I felt at this treatment, my desire to see the relic overcame my forbearance, and, seizing a stone, while I ordered my attendant to take another, we made the quarter ring with our blows. After a time the voice was heard again: “Why don't you go away. I won't open the door.”

“I won't go away, and I will break open the door if you don't open it,” I shouted.

“But I am the chief of the police.”

“I don't care who you are; open the door,” and bang went a stone against it.

There was silence for a moment, and then another and a milder voice: “Wait a moment. I will let you in,” and the door opened and revealed an empty courtyard and a youth.

“My father was angry because you disturbed him so early,” he remarked, apologetically, and I then observed many signs betokening a recent rapid evacuation on the part of the female members of the family.

Now that I was in, with a large fragment of a beautifully carved frieze staring me in the face, I could afford to be civil. I was profuse in my apologies, and promised to disturb no one if I were only shown the antiquities. But I was destined to experience another reaction of disappointment when the mild youth informed me that this was all there was left. The others had been sent to the museum at Constantinople. Fortunately antiquities, especially when they are massive, travel slowly in this country, and as I had an opportunity of seeing these before they left Haifa, and made such careful copies of them as time permitted, I will describe them.

The peculiar interest which attaches to these remains, which evidently belong to the Græco-Roman period, arises from the fact that they may possibly have formed part of the great pagan temple which is represented on the Greek imperial coins of the ancient Acropolis. The main objection to this theory is that the temple, it is supposed, was erected on Mount Gerizim, and the coins show that it was approached by a handsome flight of steps, whereas these remains were found not far from the base of the mountain, though sufficiently on its slope to warrant the approach of a flight of steps. The fact that the subjects of the tableaux are all taken from Greek mythology would indicate that there must have been a large population in Samaria in those days, who, so far as their worship was concerned, were not Samaritans.

Besides two draped figures, unfortunately without their heads, one life-size and one fifty inches in height, there was a pedestal forty inches high, triangular in shape, and on each face were two tableaux in bas-relief, making six carved representations in all, in a very perfect state of preservation, with inscriptions in Greek above them, of which, however, I have only been able to make out the general tenor in some cases. Besides copying the inscriptions, I made such sketches as I was able of the tableaux. Where many figures are crowded together this is a very difficult operation. The first scene represents a chariot drawn by serpents, in which is a robed female, while on the left a woman is crouched down under a tree. The second consists of Artemis, Apollo, and Leto, with their names inscribed above them, while on the right is the serpent Python, his head pierced by an arrow. The third represented an infant struggling with a serpent between two draped female figures, evidently Hercules strangling the serpents sent against him by Hera; for above were the words, “Trophoi Erakles.” These formed the upper tableaux. Below them were three other tableaux, illustrating the legend of Theseus, the inscription being “Theseus gnorismata,” above a tableau in which he is represented raising a stone under which are hidden the sword and shoes of his father Aigeus. In the second he is kneeling on one knee in a struggle with the Minotaur, while behind him are a group of boys whom he came to save. In the third he has slain the robber, who is lying prostrate at his feet. Theseus is nude and leaning on his club, with three other persons all robed standing by him.

There can be little doubt that had any one been present when this discovery was made, a fuller excavation would have been amply repaid, and that the house of the ill-tempered old Moslem stands on a site of the highest interest. I have carefully noted its position, in the hope that at some future day conditions may exist which would render possible an examination of his garden, which is now surrounded by a high wall. It would require little digging to determine whether this was the site of the celebrated temple or not.

I now left Nablous for the purpose of visiting the ruins of the ancient city of Samaria, distant about five miles, and formerly the political capital of the country. It is placed in a most commanding position, and, from a strategical point of view, was well chosen. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the prospect of the surrounding country which is obtained from it. We first inspect the Crusading church of St. John the Baptist, which must have been a beautiful edifice in its day. The walls alone are now standing. In an underground crypt, now held sacred by the Moslem peasantry, the saint is supposed to have been beheaded. The tradition, though erroneous, is ancient, and existed in 380 A.D. It has some colour, from the fact that the wilderness in which John preached is near this, and not near Jericho, as is generally supposed. It can be pretty well identified by the description “Onon, near to Salem,” where John was baptizing, “because there was much water there.” Both these places retain their names, and there is an abundant supply of water, which flows hence into the Jordan. The fact that Bethabara must be placed much higher up the Jordan valley than the position usually assigned to it by tradition makes it pretty certain that the Wady Far'ah, the head of which is near Samaria, in which are Onon and Salem, and which flows into the Jordan not far from the probable position of Bethabara, was the scene of John's ministrations.

The most interesting ruins, however, are those of Herod's Colonnade, to the west of the modern village. It seems to have run round the hill on a flat terrace, in the middle of which rises a rounded knoll, on which the temple dedicated to Augustus, and stated by Josephus to be in the middle of the town, presumably stood. The remains are most perfect on the south, where some eighty columns are standing. These are mainly monolithic. The width of the cloister was sixty feet, and the pillars are sixteen feet high and six feet apart. The whole length of what must have been a most imposing colonnade was about two thousand yards, or nearly a mile and a quarter. Josephus makes it nearly two miles, but this is exaggerated. There is another street of columns at the bottom of the hill running in a line oblique to the sides of the upper colonnade. The colonnade was entered by a gateway, flanked by small towers, the scarps of which still remain.

Samaria is not to be compared in antiquity with Shechem, its most flourishing time being, probably, during the reign of Herod, when, in fact, all Palestine enjoyed a period of architectural magnificence greater than anything it had previously known. If, instead of following the ordinary road from Samaria, we ascend, from the large village of Burka, a steep hill, we burst upon a view which is well worth the climb, which has also the advantage of being a short cut. We look down into a fertile basin covered with olive groves and villages, and in the distance can see a considerable extent of coast line near Cæsarea, while the familiar outline of Carmel to the northwest closes the prospect. Then we plunge down into the gardens of the village of Fendakumiyeh, where there is a sacred cave worth visiting, containing two recesses, before which there is a detached block of stone like an altar. It may probably have been an ancient rock-cut chapel. Close to this village is another called Zeba, which I was sorely tempted to visit, as I had received an invitation to do so from the sheik who lives here, and who is one of the richest and most powerful sheiks in the country. He had already called upon me in Haifa, and represents the great family of Jerrar, who once exercised an almost independent rule in this district, setting the Turkish government at defiance, and levying blackmail on the inhabitants, while they were in perpetual feud with rival families who claimed a like local supremacy in other parts of the country. The whole of this system was broken down during the Egyptian occupation of the country by Ibrahim Pasha. When, by British intervention, it was handed back to the Turkish government, the latter succeeded in preventing its recurrence—not, however, without the application of force. More than one of these local sheiks can point out to you a hole in the wall of his house which was made by a Turkish cannon-ball. They are by degrees submitting to the influence of civilization, and, finding that it is no longer possible to compete successfully with the officials in plundering the peasantry, are making friends with these latter, so as either to go shares with them, or to obtain their favor and assistance in their own agricultural operations, and thus avoid being robbed themselves.

Thus in the immediate neighbourhood of this village there is a plain called the Drowned Meadow, from the fact that during a great part of the year it is a marsh, and therefore unavailable for crops. Could it be drained it would add some thousands of acres of arable land to the village to which it belonged. Not long ago I was consulted in regard to the possibility of its being drained, and an engineer even went so far as to make an estimate of the probable cost of the operation. Although the sum charged was very moderate, it was more than the capitalists could venture upon, but the very fact that they could entertain such an idea was a marked evidence of progress on the part of men whose only notion of drainage heretofore had been confined to their neighbours' pockets.

Although probably I should have seen a splendid specimen of a native magnate's establishment, I found that a halt at Zeba would have lost me a day, and I therefore pushed on without allowing the sheik to suspect my proximity to his hospitable abode, still keeping to bypaths instead of following the beaten track to Jenin, the ancient Engannin, or Spring of Gardens. From thence, in a day's journey across the plain of Esdrælon, I reached Haifa.

A DRUSE FATHER'S VENGEANCE.

Daliet-el-Carmel, Nov. 7.—An incident so highly characteristic of Druse life and manners has just occurred here that it seems worthy of narration. About three months ago I was invited to be present at the ceremony of the betrothal of the son of the richest man in the village, by name Sheik Saleh, with the daughter of a neighbour called Kara, whose wife was a sister of Sheik Saleh. The affair came off in the house of the former, a small mud-built cottage situated in a court, with the usual arched roof, and floor of a rough kind of cement, on which were spread rugs and mats for the guests who crowded in to witness the ceremony. This took place at nine o'clock at night, and was performed by the khateeb, or spiritual sheik. It consisted in his joining the hands of the future bridegroom and bride's father—the bride herself was not present—and in his repeating several formulas in Arabic, among which I detected some of the verses of the Koran. A small sum of money was then paid over to the family of the bride, the khateeb took his fee out of it, refreshments were brought in, and the rite was over.

It was a relatively tame performance, and not to be compared with an actual wedding of another couple which took place shortly afterwards, when the festivities lasted three days and nights, during which time the bride, loaded with her dowry, which consisted chiefly of silver coins formed into a head-dress and breastplate, danced incessantly in the centre of admiring circles of girls who danced round her, while the men were also making the night resound with their discordant clamour to the utter destruction of slumber, firing off guns, making bonfires, and singing. In fact, at the end of the three days the whole village, but especially the bride, were utterly exhausted by their protracted gaieties. At the end of this time she was put upon a horse and marched in solemn procession to the door of every house in the village, followed by a bevy of damsels screaming and clapping their hands. Each house was expected to contribute a small sum—make a wedding-present, in fact, to the newly-married couple. In this way she was finally conducted to the bridegroom's house, where he was waiting for her with a capacious mantle, in which, on her arrival, he enveloped her, and then carried her into his house triumphant.

To go back to the episode of the betrothal. It is the Druse custom for the father of the bridegroom to pay a sum of money to the bride's family—in other words, he buys his son a wife. Now, in this case, although I saw some money pass on the occasion, it was a mere formality. The father of the bride had, in a fit of generosity, probably interested, refused a sum of 2000 piastres, or about $75 for his daughter. He proposed instead that he should form a partnership for agricultural operations with Sheik Saleh, who, being rich, would be an advantageous partner. This Sheik Saleh agreed to, and the arrangement was completed, when it was objected to by Sheik Saleh's wife, who, being a woman of character and resolution, induced her husband to break it off. This made Kara furious. He is a man of ungovernable temper, and he determined that his daughter should never wed Sheik Saleh's son. But a betrothal of the kind I had witnessed is a very solemn ceremony, and the only person who can break it is the betrothed bridegroom. The girl and her family are powerless in the matter. Kara was so maddened by what had occurred that, rather than let his daughter marry the son of the man by whom he felt himself to have been outraged, he determined to kill her. This was an odd resolution to arrive at. One would have thought he might have gratified his vengeance better by killing Sheik Saleh or his son. Druse passion, however, runs in curious channels, and he appears to have been exasperated because his daughter did not share in his fury against her cousin.