CHAPTER XXIX.

THE feast of unleavened bread immediately succeeded the passover. It continued seven days; the last of these commemorated their passage through the Red Sea, and was observed with peculiar solemnity.

After the days of the feast were over, Caphtor and Sephora prepared to leave Jerusalem. They proposed to return to Nain by the eastern banks of the Jordan; and, accordingly, left the city by a different gate to the one at which they entered it, and again crossing the brook Kedron and the valley of Jehoshaphat, ascended the Mount of Olives, by that path which David took when he wandered sorrowfully forth, an exile from his royal city, bare-footed, weeping as he went, his head strewed with dust, his heart torn by remorse and pierced by the envenomed fang of filial ingratitude; while conscience, with a voice that broke the si

lence of his soul, told him that all he felt was but a just retribution for his own rebellion against an almighty Father. The gloom of the ancient trees seemed to encourage meditation; and the mind naturally sought to retrace the sorrows of the humbled monarch while ascending this path, which was still called the path of tears.

Mount Olivet was divided into three summits; the most northerly was the highest; and, as it were, overhung the city, and afforded one of the finest views of it. Here they took leave of Jerusalem and their friends, who bestowed on them parting gifts; and Sephora, as her last request, begged of Laadon to continue his inquiries after Arbalio, of whom they had been unable to obtain any certain tidings. They travelled on descending ground till they reached a fountain, which was generally made the first resting-place between the holy city and Jericho. From hence they proceeded along an intricate road, presenting a quick succession of hills and vallies; which, though somewhat sterile by nature, bore the same

marks of industry and fruitfulness as those in the more northern parts of Judea.

After travelling for some hours through this cheerful scenery, they reached the confines of the wilderness, a most comfortless and abandoned place; consisting of high rocky mountains so torn and disordered, as if the earth had here suffered some great convulsion, and its very bowels had been turned outward.

From the tops of these hills of desolation, the eye looked down on that awful and motionless expanse of waters, whose appearance naturally suggested the idea of death. A high ridge of cheerless mountains, no otherwise diversified than by a quick succession of naked rocks and precipices, and rendered frightful by a multitude of torrents that fell on all sides of them, ran along its eastern coasts. And thus enclosed in its bituminous and desert shores, the watery monster looked as if entombed in its native sepulchre, doomed to meet the vengeance of eternal fire.

As they descended towards the plains of

Jericho, nature again assumed a gentler aspect, and seemed to have withdrawn her luxuriance from the surrounding regions, only to bestow it in greater abundance on this favoured spot.

The plain (the great field, as it was called) was about seventy furlongs in length, and twenty in width. It was situated between two mountains, reaching from the village Genabara to the lake Asphaltes. The river Jordan ran through it, and it was also watered by many lesser streams; on the borders of which were fruitful orchards, cyprus trees, palms, and myrobalans, and that little thorny bush called za-cho-ne, whose fruit is so much esteemed among the Arabs for its healing virtues, grew here in profusion. The air was scented with a thousand sweets, but the smell of honey predominated over every other, and the hum of the wild bee's wing formed the unceasing music of the plain.

They pitched their tent near the site of the old city, and did not enter the new, which stood at some distance under a barren

mountain of immense length, stretching from the borders of Scythopolis to the coasts of Sodom.

Early on the morrow they left this station, crossed the deep and rapid Jordan on a raft, and encamped by the Dead Sea.

Whilst Caphtor was assisting in setting up the tents, Sephora walked along the margin of this solemn shore. It was all one scene of wild desolation, and marked the footsteps of an avenging God. Images of such vastness and sublimity more than fill, they distend the mind, and produce pain rather than pleasure. She went forward for some way, but found nothing to vary the prospect till she came to an opening in the rocks, where tamerisks and oleanders were growing in great luxuriance, as well as various other shrubs that seemed more peculiar to the soil. Struck with the peaceful charms of this narrow glen, she turned into it to admire its bloom, and look for that deceitful fruit whose beauty proves but dust and ashes. She was for a long time unsuccessful in her search, but gathered many other