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about two hours the shores are cleared; with the same quiet they remount their camels and horses; and before the noonday heat has set in, are again encamped on the upper plain of Jericho. . . . Once more they may be seen. At the dead of night, the drum again wakes them for their homeward march. The torches again go before; behind follows the vast multitude, mounted, passing in profound silence over that silent plain-so silent that, but for the tinkling of the drum, its departure would hardly be perceptible. The troops stay on the ground to the end, to guard the rear, and when the last roll of the drum announces that the last soldier is gone, the whole plain returns again to its perfect solitude.

CHAPTER V.

GALILEE.

It is one peculiarity of the Galilean hills, that they contain green hollows or basins of table-land just below their topmost ridges, forming marked features in any view from the summit of Tabor or from the slopes of Hermon. Such, apparently, was that ancient sanctuary, the birth-place of Barak, KedeshNaphtali; such, too, was the Roman capital of Galilee, Dio-Cæsarea, but such, above all, is Nazareth. Fifteen gently rounded hills "seem as if they had met to form an enclosure" for this peaceful basin; they rise round it like the edge of a shell to guard it from intrusion. It is "a rich and beautiful field" in the midst of these green hills, abounding in gay flowers, in fig-trees, small gardens, hedges of the prickly pear, and the dense rich grass affords an abundant pasture.

"Nazareth," in the words of an old writer, "is a rose, and, like a rose, has the same rounded form, enclosed by mountains as the flower by its leaves." The village stands on the steep slope of the southwestern side of the valley; its chief object the great Franciscan Convent, with its white bell-tower and its brown enclosure. From the crest of the hills which thus screen it, is one of the most striking views in Palestine Tabor, with its rounded dome, on the

south-east; Hermon's white top in the distant north; Carmel and the Mediterranean Sea to the west; and in the nearer prospect, the uplands in which Nazareth itself stands; on the west lies the town of Sepporieh, the supposed residence of the Virgin's parents; on the south and south-east lies the broad plain of Esdraelon, overhung by the high hill which has received the name of the "Mount of Precipitation."

These are the natural features which, for nearly thirty years, met the almost daily view of Him "who increased in wisdom and in stature" within this beautiful seclusion. Unknown and unnamed in the Old Testament, Nazareth first appears as the abode of the humble carpenter. Its wild character, high up in the Galilean hills, may account both for the roughness of its population, unable to appreciate their own Prophet, and for the evil reputation which it had acquired even in the neighbouring villages, one of whose inhabitants, Nathanael, of Cana, said, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" There, secured within the natural barrier of the hills, was passed that youth, of which the most remarkable feature is its absolute obscurity; and thence came the name of NAZARENE, given of old by the Jews to that despised sect which has now embraced the civilised world.

Two natural features are still connected with the events which have made Nazareth immortal. The first is the spring or well in the green open space at the north-west extremity of the town. This well— which must always have been frequented, as it is now,

by the women of Nazareth-is probably that which the earliest traditions of Palestine claimed to be the scene of the Angelic Salutation to Mary, as she, after the manner of her countrywomen, went thither to draw water. The second is indicated in the Gospel history by one of those slight touches which serve as a testimony to the truth of the description, by nearly approaching, but yet not crossing, the verge of inaccuracy. "They rose," it is said of the infuriated inhabitants, “and cast Him out of the city, and brought Him to a brow of the mountain' on which the city was built, so as to 'cast Him down the cliff."" Most readers probably from these words imagine a town built on the summit of a mountain, from which summit the intended precipitation was to take place. This, as I have said, is not the situation of Nazareth. It is built "upon," that is, on the side of, "a mountain," but the "brow" is not beneath but over the town, and such a cliff as is here implied is to be found, as all modern travellers describe, in the abrupt face of the limestone rocks, about thirty or forty feet high, enclosed within the present town. But the most important district of Galilee has not yet been mentioned.

1. We must descend from the hills of Galilee once more into the Plain of Esdraelon, and leaving Tabor on the right, turn off into a wild upland plain, broken by a long low ridge, rising at its northern extremity into a square-shaped hill with two tops, which give it the modern name of "the Horns of Hattîn," Hattîn being the village on the ridge

at its base. This mountain or hill-for it only rises sixty feet above the plain-is that known as the Mount of the Beatitudes, the supposed scene of the "Sermon on the Mount." It is the only height seen in this direction from the shores of the Lake of Gennesareth. The plain on which it stands is easily approached from the lake, and from that plain to the summit is but a few minutes' walk. The platform at the top is evidently suitable for the collection of a multitude, and corresponds precisely to the "level place "to which He would " come down" as from one of its higher horns or points, to address the people. Its situation is central both to the peasants of the Galilean hills, and the fishermen of the Galilean lake, between which it stands, and would therefore be a natural resort both to "Jesus, and His disciples" when they retired for solitude from the shores of the sea, and also to the crowds who assembled "from Galilee, from Decapolis, from Jerusalem, from Judæa, and from beyond Jordan." None of the other mountains in the neighbourhood could answer equally well to this description. This stands separate the mountain" which alone could lay claim to a distinct name, with the exception of the one height of Tabor, which is too distant to answer the requirements.

2. From the plain and from the mountain, thus doubly celebrated, the traveller descends to the sea of Galilee, the most sacred sheet of water that this earth contains. The first glimpse of its waters he Matt. iv. 25-v. 1.

Luke vi. 17.

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