As another memorial of primitive times, we may mention that it is still common in Nazareth to see "two women grinding at the mill;" illustrating the remarkable saying of our Lord in reference to the destruction of Jerusalem. The two females, seated on the ground opposite to each other, hold between them two round flat stones, such as are seen in Lapland, and which in Scotland are usually called querns. In the centre of the upper stone is a cavity for pouring in the corn; and by the side of this an upright wooden handle for moving it. To begin the operation, one of the women with her right hand pushes this handle to her companion, who in her turn sends it back to the first, thus communicating a rotatory and very rapid motion to the upper stone; their left hands being all the while employed in supplying fresh corn, as fast as the bran and flour escape from the sides of the machine.*

It is not without pleasure that the traveller contemplates these unaltered tokens of the simple life which prevailed in Palestine at the time when our Saviour abode in the house of Mary his mother; and more especially, as he cannot fail to contrast them with the pernicious mummery which continues to disgrace the more artificial monuments of Christian antiquity. From the extravagances chargeable upon the priesthood at all the holy places in Canaan, there has resulted this most melancholy fact, that devout but weak men, unable to distinguish between monkish fraud and simple truth, have considered the whole series of topographical evidence as one tissue of imposture, and have left the Holy

* Clarke, vol. iv. p. 167.

Land worse Christians than when they entered it. Credulity and scepticism are extremes too often found to approximate; and the man, accordingly, who suddenly relinquishes the one, is almost sure to adopt the other.

Burckhardt remarks that the Church of Nazareth, next to the one over the Holy Sepulchre, is the finest in Syria, and possesses two tolerably good organs. Within the walls of the convent are several gardens and a small burying-ground; the building is very strong, and serves occasionally as a fortress to all the Christians in the town. There are eleven friars on the establishment, the yearly expenses of which, amounting to about £900, are defrayed by the rent of a few houses and the produce of a small portion of land, the property of the good fathers.

Before quitting this interesting place, the scene where our Lord passed the days of his childhood and youth, we may observe, that there is a great variation in the accounts given by different travellers as to the number of its inhabitants. Dr Richardson restricts it to six or seven hundred; Mr Buckingham raises it to two thousand; while others assert that it does not fall short of half as many more. There are five hundred Turks, and the remainder are Christians,-the latter described as a civil and very industrious class of people.

At about an hour and a half towards the northeast, situated on the slope of a hill, stands Kefer Kenna, or Cana of Galilee, the village where the Redeemer performed his first miracle. Here, in a small church belonging to the Greek communion, is shown an old stone pot made of the common rock of the country, and which is said to be one of the ori

ginal vessels that contained the water afterwards converted into wine. It is worthy of note, says Dr Clarke, that in walking among the ruins of Cana one sees large massy pots of stone answering to the description given by the evangelist; not preserved nor exhibited as relics, but lying about disregarded by the present inhabitants, as antiquities with the original use of which they are altogether unacquainted. From their appearance, and the number of them, it is quite evident that the practice of keeping water in large stone pots, each holding from eighteen to twenty-seven gallons, was once common in the country.

The remains of the house in which the marriage was celebrated are likewise pointed out to the traveller, who, at the present day, is permitted to examine curiosities with greater deliberation than was allowed to honest Doubdan.* This pious confessor, whose zeal prompted him to leave nothing unexplored, found an old church in the village, ascribed as usual to the inexhaustible beneficence of St Helena; but his attention was more pleasantly engaged in tracing the course of the stream which issues from the sacred fountain, whence the water was drawn for the marriage-feast. There is still a limpid spring near the village, which affords to the inhabitants their daily supply of a delicious beverage. Pilgrims repair to it moved by feelings of piety, or, as Doubdan expresses it, to satisfy at once their devotion and their thirst. A few olive-trees

"De là nous retournasmes sur nos pas, à l'entrée du village par où nous avions passé, pour aller voir la Fontaine où on alla puiser l'eau qui servit a ce miracle; mais en allant ces femmes et enfans nous penserent accabler de pierres et d'injures, tant ils sont inhumains et enemies des Chrestiens.-Le Voyage, &c. p. 512.

being near the spot, travellers alight, spread their carpets, and, having filled their pipes, generally smoke tobacco and take some coffee; always preferring repose in these places to any accommodation which can be obtained in the village. Such has

been the custom of the country from time immemorial, extending not only to the wayfaring man, but also to the shepherds on the surrounding hills, and to the companies of merchantmen whose trade carries them through the neighbouring deserts.*

As we must now leave the interior of Palestine, and return to the shore of the Mediterranean, we cannot do more at this advanced stage of our progress than take a distant view of the landscape which stretches from the Lake of Tiberias to the sources of the Jordan. The mountains that terminate the prospect are extremely magnificent, some of them being covered with perpetual snow. The intervening country, too, is in many parts uncommonly fine, presenting luxuriant crops, thriving villages, and other tokens of security and comfort. The Jordan issues from Lake Hoole, or Julias, which in its turn is fed by so many streams, that it becomes very difficult to determine the true fountain of the sacred river.

The only town of consequence, between the ruins of Capernaum and the Alpine range of Hermon and

* Clarke, iv. p. 187. "We were afterwards conducted into the chapel, in order to see the relics and sacred vestments there preserved. When the poor priest exhibited these, he wept over them with so much sincerity, and lamented the indignities to which the holy places were exposed in terms so affecting, that all our pilgrims wept also. Such were the tears which formerly excited the sympathy and roused the valour of the Crusaders. The sailors of our party caught the kindling zeal, and nothing more was necessary to incite in them a hostile disposition towards every Saracen they might afterwards encounter.'

U

Djibbel el Sheik, is Saphet, already mentioned, be ing one of the four cities consecrated by the religious veneration of the Hebrews. According to Burckhardt, it stands upon several low hills that divide it into quarters, the largest of which is occupied by Jews. The whole may contain six hundred houses, of which one hundred and fifty belong to the people just named, and nearly as many to the Christians. The summit of the principal eminence is crowned with an ancient castle, part of which is regarded by the descendants of Israel as being contemporary with their earliest kings.

Saphet is still a sort of university for the education of the Jewish rabbis, of whom there are usually twenty or thirty resident, collected from different countries of Europe, Africa, and Asia. They have no fewer than seven synagogues. Their attachment to this place arises from various motives, and especially from the traditionary belief that the Messias is to reign here forty years before he assumes the government at Jerusalem. To the north of the hill on which the castle stands there are several wells, which, it is said, were dug by the patriarch Isaac, and became the cause of contention between his herdsmen and those of Gerar; but, says Pococke, they have much mistaken the place, the Valley of Gerar being at a great distance on the other side of Jerusalem. This town, which is only mentioned in the book of Tobit as belonging to the tribe of Naphtali, became famous during the Crusades; it was occupied also by a detachment of French troops during the invasion of the country by Bonaparte.

It is worthy of notice, that when the celebrated chief now named retreated from before Acre, the