we instantly noticed the features of his face to change, and he seemed to hesitate, and soon turned away his musket. At this instant Solomon came in sight, and a conversation was soon struck up in Arabic, and interpreted to us by the dragoman, that this Arab was the officer of the Grand Sultan placed here to demand permission money from every party that passed along from Jaffa to Jerusalem. This money, called a Gaffar, was a tax originally laid by the kings of Jerusalem on travellers, and was applied to repair the roads. But we refused to pay it more firmly even than before, as by this time the rest of the party had joined us. Finding that we were not an unprotected pilgrim, and that we were a stronger party than he was at first aware of, and fearing the consequences, as he was told that we travelled under the protection of the Turkish government, he stretched out his hand to us, desirous to become friends; and to this we had no manner of objection.

The rim of the broad bright sun was just touching the horizon, and in a moment after shaking our hand, the Bedouin leaped off his horse, unsheathed his sword, and planting it before him, he bowed prostrate on the sand, and thus, like a true Mussulman, he went through his prayers very devoutly. We remarked at the moment that he would have done all this, perhaps with more devotion, if we had been stretched beside him as a corpse, shot by his own hand from his own musket. He allowed us and our mules to drink at the spring, but he stopped us when we offered to turn to the village to rest for the night. He told us that the water was scarce, and that none could be spared for travellers. We laughed at this, but he added that we would assuredly be all plundered ere the morning, and that after what had happened, he would be blamed and punished for the misdeeds of others; and we had been informed before, that so many travellers had been plundered in this locality, that it is called by the Franks "the den of thieves." Our guides told us that the next stage was through a solitary

and very rough track, amidst the mountains, and up by the watercourse, and around the rocks, in deep narrow ravines infested with wild beasts. Regardless of what they said as to wild beasts, we saw that we had no choice, and we resolved to proceed at all hazards to the village called after the prophet Jeremiah, and where he was born and buried. Such was our road; the distance was eleven miles, and the stars were beginning to shine when our deliberations were ended, but we took the road through the valley of Jeremiah.

The next stage traversed by Saul was through this solitary and rough tract, amid the mountains of Judah, onward to the village of Jeremiah, where he was born and buried. The path here is the roughest, and altogether the most dangerous we ever passed. Dr. Richardson says of it-" The features of the whole scenery brought strongly to my recollection the ride from Sanquhar to Leadhills in Scotland, but the comparison gives a favourable representation of the hills of Judah, and there are two remarkable points of difference. In the northern scenery, the traveller passes over an excellent road, and travels among honest, industrious people, where the conversation of the peasantry will delight and surprise the man of letters; but among the hills of Palestine the road is almost impassable, and the traveller finds himself among a set of infamous and ignorant thieves, who would cut his throat for a farthing, and rob him of his property for the pleasure of doing it."

This tract fills the mind with images of death, and presents an aspect of desolation which the pen cannot describe. We have travelled the whole Highlands of Scotland, the Saxon Switzerland, and the Tyrolese and other terrific gorges of the Alps, for hundreds of miles, and we have been in many of the glens of the Appennines, but the scenery of such do not match that of the hills of Judah. "At times," says Chateaubriand, "the path lies over the summit of a hill, or round a bold cliff jutting out, and again through narrow defiles overhung by frowning heights,

and again it goes down like the seats of a Roman amphitheatre, or up like the walls, in the form of a flight of steps, which support the vineyards in the valley of Savoy." Bartlett says "I had seen by moonlight the time-hallowed glories of the Old World, and the wonders of the New. I had stood alone at that hour within the awful circle of the Coliseum. I had watched the lunar rainbow, spanning the eternal mists from the base of Niagara. But this night's march across the desolate hills of Judah awoke in me a more sublime and a more thrilling interest." Saul must have passed this gorge, and seen it in all its sad and solitary sublimity of horror.

The village where Jeremiah was born would be held in great respect in the days of Saul. It is high upon the mountains, and situated among rocks too bare and barren to maintain any great concourse of native inhabitants; but being a place of great interest to every Jew, crowds of pious visitors would frequent it from all parts of Palestine, and the parents of Saul would not fail to go by it on their way to Jerusalem, and to reverence the hallowed spot where the bones of the prophet were deposited. The locality is now dreary, deserted, and seldom visited. The village is a straggling cluster of Mahommedan mud huts; but it is healthy and well ventilated, from its high and dry position. All around is rocky, tame, and quite bare of vegetation. A convent has been built to commemorate the spot, and while it was in repair it must have been both extensive and imposing. It is now in ruins, and the resort of owls, scorpions, and wild beasts at times. It was our hotel for a few miserable hours at midnight, when our sleep was disturbed by feverish dreams from fright and over-fatigue.

It is within three hours of Jerusalem from this place. The road, narrow and rugged, with large boulders and breaks beyond all description, ascends amid vineyards well-defined on both hands, on the slopes and tops of the