future, lived again, as in the ancient days, in all the reality of His divine humanity; He came forth from the cold mists of metaphysics, and the gilded clouds of legend, and showed Himself to me such as He was seen by St. Peter and St. John, by Mary of Bethany, the woman who touched His garment, and the sinner who wept at His feet. This impression I hope to bring out in the work I am preparing on the Life of Jesus, but if these notes of travel, written for the most part under the tent, and in view of the places described, may preserve some traces of it not too faint to be distinguished, they will have attained their end. There is nothing new under the sun; but the sun, by the exhaustless variety of its lights, presents things under incessantly new aspects. So it is with the human soul; it colours that which it contemplates; it throws its own emotion, its inner light on the most familiar objects. This is my encouragement to speak of Palestine, Egypt, and Greece, in spite of all the noble books which have already transported us thither.

I have travelled not only into space but into time, that is, into history. I could not for a moment separate the places through which I passed from the memories which they called up; and

which gave them their principal interest in my eyes.

The history of the religions which had their cradle and their hearth in the countries I have visited, occupies therefore, a large place in these notes; but it appears only in the broken and casual form which it naturally assumed in connexion with the incidents of travel.

I have related not only what I saw but what I thought and felt; blending freely present and past, incidents and reflections, descriptions and opinions on men and things.

If the reader finds this medley wearisome, he has an easy remedy for his ennui. A little book like this which makes such small pretensions is soon laid aside when it ceases to interest.

I shall preface the notes of my journey with a rapid sketch of the pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and a brief enumeration of the great geographical divisions of Palestine. The reader will thus have an easy clue by which to follow the descriptions of the various places.

EDMOND DE PRESSENSÉ.

INTRODUCTORY.

I.

Pilgrimages and Travels in the Holy Land.

T is well known how numerous have been pil

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grimages to Palestine from the very early ages of Christianity. To retrace their history in detail would be a curious investigation; it would be in fact a history of religious feeling itself under its various forms.

During the period which succeeds the Apostolic age, there are, properly speaking, no pilgrimages to the Holy Land. No doubt the troubles which followed the taking of Jerusalem, the revolts of the Jews, the terrors of an implacable tyranny, account for the rarity of journeys to Palestine at this period, but it must not be forgotten also that the Church was then still animated by that robust spirituality which made St. Paul say, "Yea, if we

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have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more." Nowhere in the

Fathers does there appear any trace of a general desire to visit Jerusalem. If such a yearning had existed in the Church of that era there would not be such vagueness and uncertainty in the traditions respecting holy places. The discussion on the site of the Holy Sepulchre could never have arisen if the first generations of Christians had been in the habit of coming to worship at it. But the early believers sought not "the living among the dead;" they stood rather gazing up into heaven, whence the cloud, which had carried the Saviour out of their sight into the excellent glory, was, according to the general belief of those days, so soon to bring Him back again. With the fourth century a new era commences; Christianity has become an imperial, established religion; it is still full of sap and of faith, but to embrace the empire within its framework-the empire which is morally Paganit must not only expand itself indefinitely but modify itself in many respects; it descends from the lofty spiritual region in which it has dwelt, to attach itself to sensible representations. Where could such a tendency find freer scope than in the land where Christ had lived and died, and had