where he says, "Thy children shall be like olive-plants round about thy CHAPTER table?"

round the

Follow me into the grove, and I will show you what may have suggested the olive comparison. Here we have hit upon a beautiful illustration. This aged and plants decayed tree is surrounded, as you see, by several young and thrifty shoots, table, which spring from the root of the venerable parent. They seem to uphold, protect, and embrace it. We may even fancy that they now bear that load of fruit which would otherwise be demanded of the feeble parent. Thus do good and affectionate children gather round the table of the righteous. Each contributes something to the common wealth and welfare of the whole-a beautiful sight, with which may God refresh the eyes of every friend of mine.

sand.

But here we must leave our pleasant grove for this singular sea of sand, Sea of which rolls quite back to the gardens of Beirût. Geologists tell us that this sand has travelled long and far before it reached its present resting-place ;— that, in fact, its original home was in the great African desert, and, during the countless ages of the past, it has been drifted first by the wind into the sea, and then by the current along the northern coast past Egypt, and around the head of the sea, until, stopped by the Cape of Beirût, it has been thrown out by the waves on to this plain. Others say that it is the sand of the Nile transported hither by the northern current in this part of the Mediterranean. It would lead us too far from our path and our purpose to discuss these theories. My own opinion is, that we need look no farther than this immediate neighbourhood for the origin of this desert. The rock on the shore is a soft sandstone, which is continually disintegrating by the action of wind and wave. The loose sand is cast up upon the beach, and the strong south-west winds which blow across the plain are constantly spreading it inward under our very eyes. No doubt, the River Damûr, which is just ahead of us, brings down a vast amount of sand during the winter rains, which is also thrown on shore by the sea. But enough of speculation. The fact is only too certain and too sad. This sand is continually driven in upon these gardens like another deluge. Entire mulberry orchards about Beirût, with all their trees and houses, have Destrucbeen thus overwhelmed since I came to the country; and the day is not distant tion of when it will have swept over the whole cape to the bay on the north of the city, unless its course can be arrested. I never take this ride without watching, with weary sadness, this ever-changing desert. Upon the great sandwaves, which swell up from twenty to fifty feet high, the west wind wakes up small but well-defined wavelets, the counterpart in miniature of those on yonder noisy sea. Should these ripples be caught and fixed by some tranquillizing and indurating agency, we should here have a vast formation of as wavy sandstone as ever puzzled the student of earth's rocky mysteries.

orchards

These sandy invasions are not found to any injurious extent north of Beirût, Sand but as you go south they become broader and more continuous. They spread waves far inland round the Bay of Acre. They begin again at Cesarea, and reach to in the the River 'Aujeh; and then south of Joppa, past Askelon and Gaza, they roll south

common

PART

I.

A tele

graphic

beacon.

Ancient

Sarco

phagi.

in their desolating waves wider and still wider, until they subside in the great desert that lies between Arabia and Africa. Let us ride up to the crest of that bold sand-wave, and take a farewell look at this prospect, so eminently Syrian. Ibrahim Pacha told the Emeer of Shwoifat that he had three different seas beneath his feet-the blue Mediterranean, this yellow Kullâbât, and the silvery sea of this olive Sahrâh. Though we may not admire the poetry of the pacha, we will the scene that inspired it. All he saw is before us; and with the noble Lebanon for background, receding and rising, range over range, up to where Sunnîn leans his snowy head against the marble vault of heaven. Picturesque villages by the hundred sleep at his feet, cling to his sides, hide in his bosom, or stand out in bold relief upon his ample shoulders, giving life and animation to the scene.

We will now rest and lunch at this khân Khŭldeh. It has taken three hours to reach it. Though you have but little relish for rotten ruins, there is something hereabouts will surely interest you. This broken tower, crowning the top of a half-natural, half-artificial mound, the guide-books will tell you, is one of those telegraphic beacons which St. Helen built along the road from Jerusalem to Constantinople, to convey to her royal son the very first tidings of the discovery of the true cross, for which she was then ransacking the rubbish of the Holy City. You may accept that, or else suppose that it was one of a system of watch-towers for the defence of the coast, such as are still kept up along the shores of Spain and Algiers. The hill itself, however, speaks of remote antiquity. But by far the most remarkable relics of past ages are those sarcophagi on the side of the mountain. Their number is surprising, since for ages the inhabitants have been breaking them up for building-stone, and burning them into lime; and still there are hundreds of them lying about on the face of the hill. They are of all sizes; some eight feet long, and in fair proportion, the resting-place of giants; others were made for small children. Many are hewn in the live rock; others are single coffins cut out of separate blocks. All had heavy lids, of various shapes, approaching to that of an American coffin, but with the corners raised. They are, no doubt, very ancient. Lift the lid, and the dust within differs not from the surrounding soil from which grows the corn of the current year. And so it was twenty centuries ago, I suppose. They are without inscriptions, and have nothing about them to determine their age or origin. Here is a cherub on one, with wings expanded, as if about to fly away to the "better land;" yonder is another with a palm branch,—emblem of immortality; while that large one has three warlike figures, the chosen companions, perhaps, of some ancient hero. But on none of them is there a single mark or scratch which might indicate that those who made them had an alphabet. Who were they? Certainly neither Greeks nor Romans. I find no mention of this place, unless it be the Heldua, which, according to the "Jerusalem Itinerary," was twelve miles south of Beirût. This distance, however, would take us to the next khân-Ghufer en Naamy; and there was an ancient tower near it. Mark Antony spent some time at a fort

V.

between Beirût and Sidon, called Dukekome, waiting for Cleopatra. Per-.CHAPTER haps this tower-crowned hill marks the spot where these mighty revellers met and feasted. However that may be, we must now leave it. An hour's easy, or rather uneasy, ride through the deep sand of the shore, will bring us to our tent on the green bank of the Damûr.

kilus

Here, on the brow of this rocky hill, we have the lime-kilns you spoke of, Limeand men in the very act of breaking up sarcophagi to feed them. It is unpardonable sacrilege thus to destroy those venerable antiquities. It is outrageous Vandalism.

Instead of hurling anathemas at these barbarians, we had better drop a tear of compassion over such ignorance, and then see if we cannot draw some lesson of instruction from even these destructive kilns. You see an immense quantity of this low, matted thorn-bush collected around them. That is the fuel with which the lime is burned. And thus it was in the days of Isaiah. "The people," says he," shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up shall they Thorns cut be burned in the fire." 1 Those people among the rocks yonder are cutting up thorns with their mattocks and pruning-hooks and gathering them into bundles to be burned in these burnings of lime. It is a curious fidelity to real life, that, when the thorns are merely to be destroyed, they are never cut up, but set on fire where they grow. They are only cut up for the lime-kiln.

up.

And here is the Damûr, with our tent pitched among oleanders and willows -a picturesque position for our first encampment. Permit me to introduce you to the house of your pilgrimage. Salîn has placed your cot and luggage The tent. on the right, and mine on the left. We will pursue this arrangement hereafter, and thereby avoid much confusion.

It looks very inviting, and promises well for future comfort. The sojourning in tents, in the land where the patriarchs tabernacled so many centuries ago, not only takes my fancy captive, but is in beautiful unison with our object.

It is. A coach or car, with its bustle and hurry, would be intolerable here; and even a fussy, fashionable hotel would be a nuisance. Let us enjoy the luxury of liberty, and, while dinner is preparing, take a stroll at our leisure up this fine wady.

This name, Damûr, is it a mere variation of the Tamyras of Strabo, the The Damura of Polybius?

Yes, if the variation is not that of the Greek and Roman. I suspect that Damûr is the true original. The main source of this river is near 'Ain Zehalteh, a village five hours to the east, under the lofty ridge of Lebanon. Other streams from the mountain farther north unite with this at Jisr el Kâdy, on the road from Beirût to Deir el Kamar. Below this the river turns westward, and falls into the sea just south of this long, straggling village of Mûallakah. Though not more than twenty-five miles long, yet, from the vast extent of lofty tr.ountains which pour their winter floods into its channel, it rises suddenly

Damûr

Isa. xxxiii. 12.

РАКТ

I.

Terrific

land-slip.

"The

into a furious, unfordable river. Many people are carried away by it and perish at this ford. This broken bridge was built by the Emeer Beshîr Shehâb, some thirty-five years ago; but it soon gave way before the violence of the stream. From the nature of the bottom, it has always been difficult to establish a bridge at this place. The emîr erected his on the ruins of one more ancient, built probably by the Romans, and with no better success than they. The river frequently changes its channel, and the Romans constructed this heavy wall running up the stream to confine it to its proper bed; but in winter it sets all bounds at defiance. During a great flood last year it spread through these gardens of Mûallakah, tore up the mulberry-trees, and swept them off to the sea. The scenery around the head of this river is not so wild as in many other places; but the basins of the different tributaries expand on an immense scale-spreading up the declivities of Lebanon, and opening out prospects which, for depth and height, vastness and variety, are rarely surpassed. The view from Mutyar Abeih, to which I directed your eye as we came along the shore, is particularly impressive. The wady of 'Ain Zehalteh abounds in remarkable cliffs of blue argillaceous marl, which are subject to slides and avalanches on a terrific scale. The Emir Hyder, in his "History of Lebanon," says, that about ninety-five years ago a projecting terrace at Kefr Nabrûkh, which had a small village on it, parted from the main mountain, and plunged with prodigious uproar into the wady below, carrying houses, gardens, and trees with it in horrid confusion. It completely stopped the river for seven days. Repeatedly have I stood on the awful precipice, and gazed upon the wrecks of this avalanche with terror. Few heads are steady enough for the giddy perch; and no one breathes freely there, or looks without a shudder into the gulf, which opens fifteen hundred feet directly below him. The emeer rclates that one man who was on the sliding mass escaped unhurt, but was ever after a raving maniac. The catastrophe occurred during the life of the historian, and not far from his home, and we may therefore give full credit to his narrative. I have seen many similar slides on Lebanon. Indeed, they occur every winter, but rarely on so gigantic a scale, or accompanied by circumstances so romantic and tragical.

Such avalanches appear to have been known even in the days of Job, and mountain he refers to them to illustrate the overthrow of vain man's hope and confifalling.' dence. "Surely," says he, "the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place;" 1 and he connects this with the waters which wear the stones, when, as now, they were occasioned by the great rains of winter.

They were, perhaps, more common in ancient days than at present. But there comes the call for dinner, and we must return to the tent.

What an abundant table the Lord, by the ministration of this lively cook of ours, has spread for us here in the wilderness! Neatly got up, too, and

1 Job xiv. 18.

PILGRIM FEELINGS AND TRAVELLING CUSTOMS.

61

nothing seems wanting. Do you know, I looked on during those days of pre- CHAPTER paration at Beirût with wonder and alarm at the hundred and one things which you were gathering around you. I could not conceive where they were to be stowed away, or how they were to be carried on the mules. Now I find that everything has a place, and an office to discharge. It is said that Bonaparte never spent more than fifteen minutes at the table. However that may be, I have no inclination to devote much time at present to this "vulgar function of eating." Dinner over, I cannot abide the tent; for, though it has somewhat the shape, it has none of the glory of this starry canopy above. As to sleep, the very idea seems absurd. Could one sleep on the golden streets Pilgrim of the New Jerusalem the first night? You shake your head reprovingly, and feelings. the allusion is extravagant, but all my present surroundings seem equally so. Boyhood's possible and impossible fancies are gathering thick about me in living realities. I was ever given to reverie, and many a day, beneath the leafy canopy of maple-trees on the banks of our own Ohio, have lain at ease, and dreamed of this land of the sun, its mysteries and its miracles, and longed to be there, and wondered if I ever should. And now I am here, on the shore of this great and wide sea, with its everlasting anthem going up to the listening stars. Here am I-but you smile, and I do not choose just now to furnish food for your mirth.

Better stop. Why, you have been dreaming, with that Longfellow, who

"Used to lie

And gaze into the summer sky,

Where the sailing clouds went by

Like ships upon the sea."

All this is a quarter of a century behind my experience. At that remote date I might have understood you, but not now. From this, on, waste no more breath in rhapsodies. A pilgrimage to Palestine has too much of the real in it to permit us to expire in the romantic. We had better prepare to imitate this muleteer, that we may be ready for the early dawn, and the bustle of a new day.

The fellow is sound asleep on the bare ground, and, like Jacob at Bethel, he A stone. pillow. has actually got a stone for his pillow.

You will often see that in this country. I have tried it myself, but could never bring sleep and stone pillows together. I suspect Jacob was not used to it, for he was disturbed with extraordinary dreams; but to Ahmed, with his hard head and stuffed cap, this stone is soft as a cushion of down.

You do not mean that he will sleep all night on this sand, and with no covering but his old cloak

in day clothes.

Certainly; and if he were at home he would do the same, at least as to Sleeping covering. This custom of sleeping in their ordinary clothes is the basis of that humane law of Moses for the protection of the poor: "If thou at all take thy neighbour's raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down; for that is his covering only, it is his raiment for his skin: