16

JERUSALEM AND SILOAM, FROM THE HILL OF EVIL COUNSEL.

St. Jerome, where, without doubt, that holy man prayed, dreamed, fasted, and studied for thirty years, and composed the famous translation of the Scriptures which is still the "Biblia Vulgata " of the Latin Church.

Damascus! one of the oldest cities in the world, if not the oldest; flourishing before the Pyramids were laid or Jerusalem was built or Israel was a nation-at war with Jews, Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians, Romans, and Arabs; the place in which St. Paul tarried, and from which Mohammed turned away, saying,

'Only one Paradise is allowed to man, and I must not make mine in this world"— Damascus, with its thousand streams from Abana and Pharpar, considered by Naaman to be "better than all the waters of Israel," beside which grow fruits and flowers in such magnificent abundance that it is "mass upon mass of dark delicious foliage rolling like waves among garden tracts of brilliant emerald green, while here and there the clustering blossoms of the orange or the nectarine lie like foam upon the verdant sea "-Damascus, with its diversified architecture, its Oriental luxuries, its delicious odours, its lingering memories of Arabian Nights' Entertainments; its bewildering bazaars, its gorgeous costumes, and, in contrast to these, its strangely cruel persecutions, its wild fanaticism, its deadly plagues, its leper hospitals. Surely we shall find here material to weave into interesting narrative, and not less so when from here we strike out into one or the other of the great caravan routes, and join the pilgrimage to Mecca, tarrying on the way to visit Bagdad.

In India the laziest gleaner might find a harvest of information. Making our head

quarters in Calcutta, we shall watch the crowd of gay equipages being driven round the Course which a hundred years ago was, as Lord Macaulay tells us, a "jungle, abandoned to water-fowl and alligators," or join the players on the Midân, the glory of Calcutta, where cricket, polo, lawn tennis, and racquets are played with an energy which belies the statement so often heard that the climate is enervating to such a degree that no Englishman can comfortably live in it. In the burning Ghât we shall witness the sorrowful rites of cremation; through the mazes of the native bazaar we shall elbow our way, and, as time permits, talk with the people and learn the habits of Europeans and natives; visit Ballygunge, the pleasant suburb; the Botanical Gardens, with the magnificent banyantree making a little forest in itself; while Barrackpore, "the Indian Windsor," and the

Government House in the city will supply plenty of scaffolding on which to build an account of many strange and startling episodes of British rule in India.

As it is only a two days' journey now by rail from Calcutta to Delhi, we may take a trip up the country, noting on the way the indigo plantations, the rice fields, the wonders of the sacred Ganges, and the more wonderful religious ceremonies in the Ghâts at Benares and the Golden Temple sacred to Siva. Benares, the Holy City of the Hindoos, the city of a thousand shrines, the Mecca or Jerusalem of the worshippers of

Brahma, is a city "wholly given to idolatry," and in its temples we shall be spectators of scenes solemn or ludicrous, according to the point of view from which we regard them. Then we may go on to Cawnpore, the scene of the gallant defence and treacherous massacre of 1857. A memorial church now marks the spot where a thousand men, women, and children kept at bay for three weeks a myriad mutineers thirsting for their blood. We shall follow them to the ravine, whither they journeyed under the pledged safeconduct of the Nana Sahib, and to the scene of the massacre at the fatal well, where now an angel, symbol of peace and hope, stands hovering over, serene yet sad. From thence we shall proceed to Lucknow, where inscriptions record, "Here Sir Henry Lawrence was struck by a shell," "Here Sir Henry Lawrence died," "Innis' House," "Cellar occupied by the women and children during the siege," and where in imagination we may hear again the glorious tramp of the avenging army, and the ringing cheers of the besieged as they welcome Havelock, Outram, and Colin Campbell, the saviours of the doomed city. A few hours' more travelling and we come to the conclusion of our Indian trip as we enter Delhi, and find ourselves surrounded by the relics of Mogul Emperors and native rulers who preceded them.

Certainly not less fascinating than a visit to India will be one to China: its enormous territory, its teeming millions, its overwhelming antiquity, its strange, and in many respects beautiful as strange, religion, its ancient rites, its modern industries, each and all have a peculiar interest for every one. China is so vast that we hesitate to mark an epoch, much less to particularise an event, in this country of Celestials. We shall, however, try to place before our readers a picture of China, which shall make them as well acquainted with its cities as they are with the drawings on their willow-pattern plates.

Turn now to Egypt, and let Alexandria and Cairo furnish us with an epitome of the whole country. Not that the two cities bear any comparison one with the other. Alexandria wears too modern and commercial an aspect to please the travelling savant; it is a conglomeration of all nationalities, a crowded and busy place, where thousands throng the bazaars, and everything is noisy and bustling. True there are a few memorials of the past still remaining, but they look almost as much out of place in the midst of their present surroundings as Cleopatra's Needle does on the Thames Embankment; and it is somewhat difficult in the whirl of modern life to build again in fancy the Pharos, and read the name of the architect in marble, and that of the founder in stucco-to replace on their shelves in the famous library the 700,000 volumes which constituted the literature of the whole world-to hear above the noise of business competition the voice of St. Mark preaching the Gospel, or St. Athanasius thundering out his denunciations, or the Learned Seventy discussing the Hebrew Scriptures as they translate them. into the Septuagint for the benefit of the 50,000 Greek-speaking Jews who once dwelt there. The Alexandria of to-day is principally interesting for its cosmopolitan crowds in the bazaars, Albanians, Turks, Syrian Jews, black-habited Copts, Nubians ("God's image carved in ebony "), Bedouin brigands, and Europeans of every nationality and in every variety of costume, from the Scottish kilt to the flowing abbas.

At Cairo, the gardens of Esbekeyeh, the mammoth hotels, the palaces, opera house,

French theatre, circus, the "Rotten Row," and all the reckless extravagances of modern ideas will startle the stranger no less than those parts of the city where he will be taken back three thousand years in the history of civilisation. It gives but a poor idea of Cairo to say that we shall visit the Boulac Museum, the Coptic churches, the Nilometer, the Island of Rhodes, the Palace of Shoobra, Memphis, Heliopolis, the Petrified Forest, and the Pyramids; that we shall see snake-charmers, dancing dervishes, princes revelling in gorgeous Orientalism, and slaves grovelling in some of the worst forms of slavery; yet all this shall we do, and more also.

If in the work before us we devote a large amount of space to the description of the great cities of America, our excuse, if one is required, must be that the universal interest in the subject is sufficient justification. There are sacred ties binding us to that country which can never be broken, and which, we venture to think, are every day growing stronger. No matter where we take up the history, with the plantation of Virginia, or the voyage of the Mayflower, or the Declaration of Independence, the story is one of the most deeply interesting that can be told. For it introduces us to the heroic struggles of the early settlers, and how they were beset, and sometimes baffled, by forces they were unable to control; to the humble beginnings of a mighty nation, whose Present is one of the most wonderful facts of modern times, and whose Future it is impossible to forecast. We shall watch the plodding footsteps of great silent toilers attacked by barbarous and relentless foes-we shall see, possibly without regret, how the "relations between the colonies and the mother-country were strained and finally broken," and how there arose brave and good leaders and counsellors, who by patience, uprightness, and self-sacrifice gave to the people the purpose and policy of a united nation. And step by step upwards we shall trace her history, as found in the memorials of her great cities, and read in those records the story of a noble people.

"Amurica is a big fact," said an American, and no one will gainsay the proposition. The Americans delight in big things; they have the biggest rivers, the biggest trees, the biggest cities, the biggest fires, the biggest successes, and the biggest failures of any people in the world. As one of them humorously said, when making fun of the weaknesses which are always an index of strength, "Our country has more lakes, and they are bigger and deeper and clearer and wetter than those of any other country. Our railcars are bigger, and run faster and pitch off the track oftener than in any other country. Our steamboats carry bigger loads, are longer and broader, burst their boilers oftener, and send up their passengers higher than in any other country," and so on. But this, of course, is "high falutin'." We shall, however, enjoy, as we tarry in the cities of the New World, the healthy humour of the people, which crops up everywhere and in everything, and is relished as much as maple-sugar or stewed clams. We shall try to see the American. as he sees himself, and if we do not take exactly the same view of him as "half horse and half alligator, with a dash of earthquake," we may see him as "the child of Nature and of ' freedom, destined to lick all creation."

In visiting the United States and Canada, we shall not go by any guide-book arrangement. Perhaps we may start at Philadelphia, just to see William Penn and his Quaker

friends purchasing from the Indians the site of the "city of Brotherly Love;" or take our stand in Independence Hall, where the famous Declaration of Independence was passed by Congress on July 4th, 1776. Or perhaps our starting-place may be Boston, the metropolis of New England; in the Faneuil Hall, "the cradle of Liberty," a spot dear to the heart of every American as the scene of those moving orations delivered in the Revolutionary days; or perhaps at Bunker's Hill, Lexington, or Concord, the theatre in which the earliest and greatest deeds of the men of Boston were performed. Or we may set out from Quebec, with its famous citadel-"the Gibraltar of America"-its polished

society, picturesque scenery, and historical associations, including the Plains of Abraham to the west of the town, where General Wolfe fell in the moment of victory.

But it will not be in quest of historical events principally that we shall travel in America. There are mammoth cities of magic growth to see, and Chicago may be taken as the best specimen and St. Louis as the next. In 1833 there were but thirty-five houses in the former outside the walls of Fort Dearborn, and those mostly built of logs. Now there are 245 churches, and over 500,000 inhabitants, a growth unprecedented in the history of any country. It was wonderful before the great fire of 1871, which swept away 17,500 buildings, occupying 3 square miles of ground, and did damage to the amount of fifty-six millions, but it became more wonderful as it arose, phoenix-like, from the flames. Beginning