the Temple, he communicated to the king of Tyre, then sovereign of Sidon, his wish to enter into an engagement for a supply of timber, saying, "There is not any among us that are skilled to hew timber like unto the Sidonians." They were also able shipbuilders, and if they were not the first who constructed vessels and navigated distant seas, they were undoubtedly the first who ventured beyond their own coasts, and established anything like a mercantile commerce. Judging from present appearances, the harbour at Sidon, like that at Joppa, was formed by a ridge of rocks parallel to the coast, affording shelter from a natural breakwater. The Sidonians are also said to have been the first manufacturers of glass. They are frequently mentioned by Homer as excelling in the arts, in articles of dress, in good workmanship in making vessels for use, and in all expertly contrived trinkets and toys. They were also adepts in the sciences of the times, such as astronomy and arithmetical calculations. Their women were distinguished for their embroidery, and a beautiful purple dye is attributed to this place.

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Sailing along shore past a bold and rocky coast for a distance of about a dozen of English miles, Saul would pass close to Sarepta, where Elijah dwelt with the widow, blessing her barrel of meal that it did not waste, and her cruse of oil that it did not fail," until the famine ceased. This is one of the Phoenician towns, which, though less famous than Sidon, was noted for its industry and for its intoxicating wines. It is also famous in mythology, as the spot from which Europa the daughter of Agenor, king of Phoenicia, was stolen by Jupiter, and carried into Crete. The town is situated near the sea, on the declivity of a hill, on which its modern representative, called Sarafend, is still found. It is a small collection of humble dwellings. There are no ruins standing of the former town, and it must have shared the fate of some other cities in its neighbourhood, the sites of which are only indicated by nume

rous stones, retaining the marks of the chisel, with mortar adhering to them, and some fragments of columns. About the seventh century the Christians failed not to show the apartment occupied by Elijah, the bed in which he lay, and even the marble vase in which the widow made her bread. Sandys says, "We came to a small solitary mosque, not far from the sea, erected, they say, over the widow's house that entertained Elias; close by it are the foundations of Sarepta. It was the seat of a bishop, and subject unto Tyrus. Right against it, and high mounted on the mountayne, there is a handsome new towne now called Sarafend. Beyond, on the left hand, is a number of caves cut out of the rocks, the habitations of supposed men in the golden age, and before the foundations of cities."

Sailing twelve miles still towards the south, Saul would come first to Tyre, called by the prophet Isaiah the Daughter of Sidon, built on a small island in the Mediterranean, which was joined to the mainland by a mound. Its merchants were princes, and its traffickers the honourable of the earth, and she was mistress of the sea. But we reserve to an after opportunity, when St. Paul visited Tyre on his way to Jerusalem, what we have to say as to its ancient trade, commerce, and navigation—as to its connexion with prophecy, so descriptive of its prosperous days, and the impressive circumstances of its destruction— and also as to what our Saviour said of it when he pronounced the doom of Chorazin and Bethsaida, because their inhabitants had witnessed his mighty works, and had remained obstinate in their unbelief. We refrain at present, also, from describing Cæsarea, the metropolis of Palestine, after its reunion with the Roman empire, and the seat of the proconsul, till our narrative brings us to one of the Apostle's several visits to this celebrated locality, where he uttered the splendid address explanatory of his conduct before King Agrippa.

But Joppa, now called Jaffa, which Saul would reach

with his parents in this journey to the Holy City, one of the most ancient seaports in the world, must now be referred to as the port of debarkation for Jerusalem. To us Jaffa shall ever be memorable as being the place where our unhallowed feet first touched the Holy Land of Promise. Here we were kept in quarantine for five days, and here, too, in all human probability, Saul and his parents first landed in Palestine, and were conveyed for a distance of forty miles onward to the city of David. This port is so very dangerous from exposure to the open sea, and from ledges of rocks, both above and below water, that it seems remarkable that it should ever have been used as such, and more so that it should claim an existence prior to the deluge. The harbour, if such it may be called, is formed by a ridge of rocks running north and south before the promontory, leaving a confined and shallow place between this ridge and the town, in which small vessels find shelter from the south and west winds, and land their cargoes on narrow wharfs, running along in front of the magazines. When the wind blows strong from the northward, the sea breaks with great violence, and there is not more than three feet of water in the deepest part of the harbour. The history of Joppa is interesting, independent of the fables connected with the place, which suffice to show the great 'antiquity of the town. Whether it existed before the flood or not, at any rate the place existed when the Israelites invaded the land of Canaan, and is mentioned as lying on the border of the tribe of Dan. (Josh. xix. 46.) But, however bad, Joppa was the only port possessed by the Israelites till Herod formed the harbour of Cæsarea. The miserable state of the ancient roads, or rather the absence of any roads, compelled the inhabitants of Jerusalem to take the best near harbour the coast affords, bad as the best might be, as being of more immediate consequence than a good one at a distance. The beach is strewed with the wrecks of vessels; and in 1842 a lieu

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tenant, a midshipman, and some sailors were lost in pulling to the shore from an English steamer that lay in the harbour, and we and our travelling companion were nearly drowned in pulling out from the harbour after dark, partly from the heavy surf, partly from the rocks and the currents or eddies they occasion, and mainly from the villany of the watermen, who managed not only to wet us thoroughly in the spray, but also to pick but also to pick our pockets to the amount of two sovereigns.

The town is built on a conical eminence (like that of Syra in Greece) overhanging the sea, the streets rising regularly one above another in tiers, according to the elevation of the different strata forming the sites of the buildings, and the houses appearing as if climbing over each other up the face of the hill. Being built of calcareous white stone, adorned with domes and square towers, it presents externally a comfortable aspect; but within there is a network of dirty, narrow streets, encumbered with rubbish, and paved like Malta with steps of stairs; and taken as a whole, it is a mere confusion of convents, khans, deserted ruins, and dirty, waste places. It is surrounded, excepting on the shore, by a stone wall, provided at certain distances with towers, alternately square and round, which have been apparently built at different times. There are three mosques, one Latin and one Greek convent, and about four thousand inhabitants. There is a small fort near the sea on the west, another on the east, and a third near the gate of entrance, mounting in all from fifty to sixty pieces of cannon.

Rabbinical writers derive the name from Japhet, while the classical geographers refer it to Iope, daughter of Iphicles, and affirm that it was on this shore that Andromeda was rescued by Perseus from the sea-monster. Cepheus, the father of Andromeda, is said to have reigned here; and the very rock to which that princess was bound in chains, and the ribs of the sea-monster which would have devoured

her had she not been rescued by Perseus, were noticed of old, as stated by Strabo, by Pliny in his " Natural History," and by Jerome. But some writer says, sensibly enough, that this tradition in all probability refers to a large piratical vessel which ravaged the coast, and being driven. on shore was here wrecked, when the neighbourhood was freed from the exactions of the crew.

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Noah is said to have built the ark here, on account of its vicinity to the Syrian forests. Here it is said the patriarch went into the ark, and the bones of the second father of the human race were buried here. The prophet Jonah went to this place in expectation of finding a ship bound on some distant voyage; and here he found one going to Tarshish, the Tarsus of Cilicia according to some commentators, and the Tunis of Africa according to others. The cedars for Solomon's Temple, hewn in Mount Lebanon, were floated to Joppa, and landed there, from whence they were conveyed to Jerusalem. At the building of the second Temple, the timber was conveyed in a similar manner. the wars of the Maccabees, the men of Joppa were charged with drowning about two hundred Jews, men, women, and children, as a punishment for which their haven was burnt by night, and their boats set on fire, and those that fled thither were slain. The town is enumerated among the cities to be restored to the Jews, by a decree of the Roman senate, after having been taken from them by Antiochus. About the same time it was also privileged by a decree of Julius Cæsar, exempting it from the yearly tribute which the other cities of the Jews were obliged to pay to Jerusalem.

Jaffa is only a distance of twelve hours' journey by land from Jerusalem. Fertile plains and gardens abounding with orange and lemon-trees, lofty palms hanging with clusters of dates, fig-trees overhanging with their broad dark leaves, affording a deep and cool shade, the golden citron, the sycamore, the vermilion-flowered pomegranate, and