ences and dislikes are treated with utter disregard, and I have known most horrible catastrophes from this cause. Now true religion will educate and elevate the females, and introduce them into society, where they will have opportu nity to become acquainted with those who seek them in marriage. Being free to accept or reject, they will not be married off while mere children to those they do not know, or knowing, abhor. The domestic institution will be placed on its true basis, and purified from a host of mischievous results, which flow necessarily from the present plan. Under the ameliorating agency of the Gospel, the material veil of Oriental seclusion will give place to the veil of genuine modesty and self-respect, for which that has been in all ages but a miserable compensation.

Again, the Gospel will greatly narrow the list of prohibited degrees of relationship. That established by Moses is certainly wide enough, but ecclesiastical legislation in the East has added largely to it, and introduced the perfectly fictitious relationships of god-parents and foster-brothers, and I know not what. In practice, these rules are found to be so intolerable, that the clergy have been obliged to invent and largely exercise the power of dispensation; but this opens a wide door to intrigue and bribery. More than half the quarrels between priest and people grow out of the manner in which this dispensing power is exercised.

Certainly Christianity knows nothing about matters in themselves unlawful, but which may be made just and right by paying a few piastres to a priest. This whole system, with all its appendages, will be abolished, and the priestly revenue derived therefrom be dried up. But such large changes in social habits and domestic institutions, to be brought about safely, must begin from within, and develop gradually, and not be rudely forced into society by foreign influence acting from without; and the Christian reformer should be contented to wait for this gradual development.

Our discussion included the present system of betrothal, which, I suppose, is much the same as in ancient Bible days. It is a sort of half marriage, accompanied with religious

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ceremonies, and the settling of the nature and amount of dower which the bridegroom is to give, a custom equally ancient. This, too, in its present form and essence, is destined to give way before the advancement of a higher Christianity, or at least to be so modified as to make marriage a less commercial transaction, in which the affections of the parties have no concern. As a part of that system by which relatives dispose of the hand and heart of a poor victim long before she is old enough to have any notions of her own, it needs to be greatly modified; I uniformly, however, refuse to take any active part in these negotiations, because the stand-point from which I regard the whole subject is altogether too far in advance of Syrian society to permit me to be a safe or practical guide in matters matrimonial.

During the storm at Alma I suffered under the constant illustration of that proverb of Solomon, A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. Whosoever hideth her hideth the wind, and the ointment of his right hand which bewrayeth itself. The force of this proverb is well understood in all its details in this country. Such rains as we have had thoroughly soak through the flat earthen roofs of these mountain houses, and the water descends in numberless leaks all over the room. This continual dropping-tuk, tuk—all day and all night, is the most annoying thing in the world, unless it be the ceaseless clatter of a contentious woman. This, too, I had experienced in its most aggravated manifestation. A quarrel arose between two neighbors about some trifling affair-a chicken, I believe-but it grew boisterous, and raged eleven hours by the watch. Through all these weary hours the "contentious woman" ceased not to scold, and scream, and curse her victim in a style quite original, and so loud that the whole neighborhood was disturbed. She would rush into the room, then bound out of it, and fly round the court like a fury, throw off her tarbouch, tear her hair, beat her breast, and wring her hands, screaming all the while at the top of

1 Prov. xxvii. 15, 16.

her shrill voice. Sometimes she would snatch up her old shoe, fly at her enemy, and shake it under her very nose, trembling all the while in uncontrollable rage; nor could she be pacified until late in the evening, and then she continued muttering, like a thunder-storm working itself quiet behind a distant mountain. Certainly he that hideth such a virago hideth the wind. It would puzzle even Petruchio to tame such a shrew.

The reference to the wind has also a peculiar force in this country, especially on such promontories as the Ladder of Tyre, and during such gales as blew on the 2d of this month. But there is another wind still more pertinent to the point in our proverb-the dry, hot sirocco. Who can either hide or abide it? I have seen it in greatest power on the plain of Aleppo, and in the wadies about Hasbeiya. The air becomes loaded with fine dust, which it whirls in rainless clouds hither and thither at its own wild will; it rushes down every gorge, bowing and breaking the trees, and tugging at each individual leaf; it growls round the houses, romps and runs riot with your clothes, and flies away with your hat; nor is there any escape from its impertinence. The eyes inflame, the lips blister, and the moisture of the body evaporates under the ceaseless application of this persecuting wind; you become languid, nervous, irritable, and despairing. We shall meet this sirocco ere long, for it occurs oftener in spring than in any other season of the year. "The ointment of the right hand which bewrayeth itself." What does that mean?

It refers to the custom of perfuming so common in ancient times, and not unfrequent now. The odor of their cosmetics is so powerful that the very street along which the person walks is highly scented. Such ointment can not be concealed: it proclaims itself, as the Hebrew may be rendered, wherever it comes. The right hand is mentioned because it is most honorable, most used in anointing, and can not be kept concealed in the bosom, as all salutations, and the endless gestures in conversation, call it forth. The ointment of the right hand will surely bewray itself, and so will a contentious woman: she can not be hid.

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Where and what is this Alma? I never met the name in all my reading.

It is a small hamlet on the top of the Ladder of Tyre, about five miles from the shore at Ras en Nakûra, and is the only inhabited village on that part of the Ladder; but every hill-top around it has a name and a ruin, some of which were cities, not villages.

It is a singular fact that these old sites are now appropri-. ated by fragments of Arab tribes, who pitch their black tents among the trees and bushes which have overgrown the ruins. Whenever you see a clump of large oaks, you may be sure that there stood a city, and there, too, is the Bedawîn's tent. These Arabs cultivate the soil, and pay taxes like other citizens, and are therefore disowned and held in contempt by the regular sons of the Desert; nor will they intermarry with those degenerate clans who choose to gain their bread by honest industry. But, then, these outcasts from the true Arab aristocracy have their own scale of nobility, and would scorn to give their daughters to those miserable wretches who dwell in houses, and follow the ways and avocations of civilization. What a bundle of absurdities and contradictions is man! These Arabs live in squalid poverty and inexpressible filth, and yet are prouder than Jupiter. One night, while keeping a bright look-out for my own integrity, having cows on two sides of me, goats and sheep all around, and fowls overhead, I was greatly amused by the complaints of my host against the filthy Arabs. "The beasts," said he-ma byarifu jins en nudâfy -"don't know any thing about cleanliness!" Such testimony, person, place, and circumstances considered, was irresistible. I devoutly believed him.

But we may learn something from these tent-dwelling tillers of the soil, poor and despised though they be. My traveling companion over this region on a former occasion suggested that they offer an example of a custom among the agricultural population of the Jews, from which came the familiar proverb, To your tents, O Israel;1 and perhaps the 1 1 Kings xii. 16.

constant reference to dwelling in tents long after they had been settled permanently in Palestine may have been founded on fact. Daher Abûd, for many years a traveling doctor among the Arab tribes east of the Jordan, tells me that the population, even of such considerable towns as Salt and Kerak, pitch tents out in the country, and there spend their summers. He supposes that this was always customary to a considerable extent, nor is this improbable. The ancestors of the Jews all dwelt in tents, and during the forty years immediately preceding their entrance into Palestine the whole nation lived in them; and it is extremely probable that many clung to their ancient manners, and spent most of their time in "tabernacles." In fact, the peasants in the south of Palestine do thus spend their summers to this day, and, were I an Arab farmer, I would do the same. Most gladly would I escape from the village, with its crowded houses, filthy within, and infested without by all the abominations which man and beast can congregate, to the bright sun, and joyous groves, and sweet air of the open country. Nor are houses necessary to the farmer in this delightful climate. Isaac dwelt in tents, and yet he sowed in the land, and received in the same year a hundred fold;' and I know no reason why many of his descendants might not have been tent-dwelling tillers of the soil.

May we not infer with certainty, from this and other passages in the history of the patriarchs, that they were not mere Bedawîn wanderers like those who now occupy the eastern deserts?

And curse the country by their annual incursions? Most certainly. Such representations are mere gratuitous slander. The Biblical patriarchs had large herds of cattle, which genuine Bedawîns have not; they tilled the ground, which those robbers never do; and they accommodated themselves, without difficulty or reluctance, to town and city when necessary, which wild Arabs can not endure. From the first there was a sort of mixture of pastoral and city life in that age and in this climate altogether consistent with a fair degree of civilization and refinement.

1 Gen. xxvi. 12.