justify the date, and there is no great violence to probability, from the nature of their situation, in the account delivered of their former appropriation. But the monk who attended to point out the different objects usually held sacred, injured the effect of his narrative by intermixing a fabulous statement of the flight of one part of the edifice to Loretto! He assigned as the motive for the disappearance of this chamber the necessity of its avoiding contamination from the presence of the infidels, who were then in military possession of the country. There are indentures in the wall to designate the space the apartment occupied, by which it appears to have been extremely small, not exceeding twelve or fourteen feet in length, and eight in breadth.

The place where Joseph exercised his art is about one hundred yards from the church; it was originally circular, but a segment only remains, the greater part having been demolished by the Turks. An altar is erected near the entrance. Not far from thence is the school, where Christ received the first rudiments of his education from the Jewish masters; and near to this last, but in an opposite side of the road, is a small chapel, enclosing the fragment of a rock, on which our

Saviour is supposed, on some occasion, to have spread his fare and shared it with his disciples. An inscription' affixed to the walls intimates it to have been consecrated by the presence of Christ, both before and subsequently to his resurrection. The form of this table is an irregular ellipse: it appears originally to have been rectangular; the extreme length is about four yards, its greatest breadth three and a half.

In a Greek church, about two furlongs from this spot, there is a fountain where the mother of Jesus was accustomed to resort; the water is pure and of sweet flavour. These are the chief objects which engage the attention of the native and stranger at Nazareth. At a mile and a half distant from the town, we were conducted by a pleasant walk, winding through the acclivities of the mountain, to the projection of a cliff, from whence the Jews attempted to precipitate Christ after his exposition in the

1 Traditio continua est, et nunquam interrupta, apud omnes nationes orientales, hanc petram dictam MENSACHRISTI, illam ipsam esse petram supra quam Dominus Noster Jesus Christus cum suis comedit discipulis ante et post suam resurrectionem a mortuis!-Then follows the grant of a plenary indulgence for seven years, on the sole condition of the party repeating a Pater Noster and Ave Maria, "dummodo sit in statu Gratia."

synagogue of a remarkable passage in the prophet Esaias.1

Under a beneficent government, sufficiently enlightened to understand that its own interests were identified with the subject's prosperity, Nazareth, whose present appearance justifies the sarcasm of Nathanael, might become the centre of a healthful and opulent district. But the reflective mischief of the Turkish system is infinitely multiplied in its operations: wherever its baneful influence extends, no salutary plant takes root, no verdure quickens. The ground adjoining the town is now waste and neglected, the industry of the natives not being sufficiently protected to induce any effort at cultivation, though the soil is light and of easy tillage, and capable of being subdued so as amply to repay the labour of the husbandman.

According to Dr. Clarke, the word Nazareth signifies in the Hebrew language a flower, a term which surely would not have been given to any place notoriously deficient either in natural beauty or fertility. Earlier in the season, a scientific herbalist might possibly discover many interesting specimens, which elude common observation; at the present advanced period,

1 Luke iv. 16.

there are few of any description visible, and those for the most part are herbs without taste, and flowers without fragrance: there is certainly nothing of that endless variety of beauties which decorate the banks and meadows in England. The sacred writings contain few allusions to these embellishments of rural scenery; the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley are, I think, almost the only plants, whose bloom is particularly noticed. There is another charm, which, from the silence of the scriptures, I suspect to be wanting throughout Palestine; I mean that natural melody, that concentus avium, in which our woods are so rich.

To-morrow we propose visiting the sea of Galilee, the river Jordan, and mount Tabor.

LETTER IV.

TO SIR G. ET, BART.

Nazareth.

DEAR E

TIBERIAS is distant from Nazareth nearly twenty miles. About half an hour's slow riding brought us within view of a village called Rana, pleasantly situated at the edge of a hill: it is inhabited exclusively by Arabs. After an interval of two hours from thence, we traversed the spot, near the little town of Toraam, which the peasants, I know not on what authority, assert to have been the scene of the miracle of the loaves and fishes: its position is near the base of a mountain, and a plain spreads out before it to a considerable extent. The gospel narrative represents this transaction to have been accomplished in

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a desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida." But as that city was subject to the juris

1 Luke ix. 10, 12.