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Clarke for terming the equally insane reveries with regard to the other sacred places, mummery, a total disbelief of which seems best suited to the feelings of Protestants.' The" Or'thodox Traveller," as he is called,' Mr. B. sneeringly says, 'is almost angry with the poor friars of Nazareth for endeavouring to make others believe what they are themselves firmly 'persuaded of.' In our strictures on the religion of others,' he adds, the advice of our Saviour himself is worth consulting, Matt. vii. 5, if we would wish to avoid the imputation thrown on those whom he so deservedly reproves.' To us this rebuke appears as unjust and uncalled for as it is uncourteous ; and it betrays a feeling of pique, or rivalry, or unfriendly sentiment of some kind towards. Dr. Clarke, which we regret to notice. Mr. Buckingham seems particularly eager to invalidate, when he can, the correctness of the Dr.'s statements; sometimes, as in the above cited paragraph, meeting them with a flat contradiction, and at other times indulging in sarcastic comments on his representations. All this is very disgusting. Dr. Clarke may have committed some mistakes, through haste or an excited imagination, or through rash deductions from partial facts, or deceptions of memory; but his authority and his merits as one of the most enlightened, indefatigable, and accomplished of modern travellers, are too well established to render a contemptuous tone of reference either proper or politic.

That the excavated dwelling which is shewn as the residence of Joseph and Mary, was really theirs, is, says Mr. Buckingham, quite as probable' as that it should have been the dwelling of any other family. Granted. That is to say, there is a chance, which a good mathematician might calculate, that it was theirs. To this chance, Tradition can add nothing of the least weight as evidence, since this same Tradition, by our Author's own shewing in the instance of the Mountain of Precipitation, is proved to be an incurable dotard; absolutely nothing, unless it be the further chance, that out of a thousand falsehoods from the lips of the same notorious liar, one story may be true. Whether the friars themselves believe what they so confidently assert, is nothing to the purpose. In a Protestant, it must be a state of mind only a shade removed from total disbelief, which we should deem warranted by the degree of probability arising from this compound chance of the thing's being true.

On the top of Mount Tabor, amid a mass of ruins, are shewn three grottoes, said to be remains of the three tabernacles proposed to be erected by St. Peter, at the moment of the Transfiguration.' We know not whether we are to charge this bull to the account of the Nazareen guide, or that of our Author. No particular history is assigned to any of the other remaius; it is probable, therefore, that they are of remote antiquity.

Mount Tabor appears to have been used in the earliest ages as a military post, and to have been strongly fortified. The Author suggests this illustration of the references to it in the fourth chapter of the Book of Judges. It resisted for some time the Roman army under Vespasian. A large portion of wall still remains entire on the south side of the plain on its summit, having its foundations on the solid rock. Among the fragments of stone, the Author noticed several blocks with Arabic inscriptions in good relief, but none of them were sufficiently long to be intelligible. He confirms Maundrell's testimony as to the measurement of the area on the top of the mount, who describes it as an oval of about two furlongs in length and one in breadth; but the bearings of the surrounding objects are, in that Traveller's account, erroneously stated. Mr. Buckingham's observations were, he says, taken by a compass, and noted on the spot. Maundrell's error, which, if it be an error, is chargeable on Pococke also and other travellers, he supposes to have been occasioned by 'some falsely assumed position of the sun in the heavens at the time ' of observation,' as the errors are, he says, relatively consistent.

• Thus, Deborah, which is written westward, should be northward; Hermon which is written eastward,* should be southward; and the mountain of Gilboa, which is written southward, should be eastward. The plate which accompanies the octavo edition of his journey (1810), is altogether so unlike the scene it is intended to represent, that I am sure it could not have been taken on the spot, nor drawn even from memory. In the first place, Nain and Endor are not distinguishable from hence, though their sites are pointed out. The supposed Hermon is a range of hills running for several miles nearly east and west, and forming the southern boundary of the plain of Esdraelon. The mountains of Gilboa are a distant range crossing those of Hermon almost at right angles, and running nearly north and south; but not approaching near to the latter, since they are east of Jordan. The mountains of Samaria are on the west of all these, and nearer to the sea. The river Kishon has its springs near to the foot of Tabor, and winds considerably in its course. And the plain of Esdraelon, besides being of four or five times the extent there given by the perspective, is not bounded by steep cliffs rising thus abruptly from their base, but by a range of smooth and sloping hills. Lastly, the Mount of Tabor, instead of the slender and towering pyramid there represented, is a rounded hill of the elevation of about one thousand feet, and of a semiglobular shape, being longer at the base in every direction than it is high, and having its outline smooth and every part of a rounded form, since from below nothing is seen of the small level space on its summit. It is the last to the eastward of a range of four

Mr. Jolliffe also describes mount Hermon as to the east of Tabor.

Rev.

hills of a similar kind, all less conspicuous than itself, and all having distinct passes between them, but neither of them so completely isolated as this of Tabor.

While analyzing this, the samé observations may be repeated on the plate of Acre and Mount Carmel, which is, if possible, still wider from the truth, while that of the cisterns of Solomon at Ras-el-Ayn, examined, like the rest, upon the spot, appeared to me so totally unlike the thing that it was intended to represent, that I forebore even to make a remark on it, and closed the book with a persuasion, that so accurate an observer as Maundrell could never even have seen those drawings, much less have approved of their being attached to his Travels. The fact, perhaps, is, that some well-meaning friend, or some interested booksellers, subsequently caused these drawings to be composed from the printed descriptions and charts of the places they profess to represent, and thus embellished, as they thought, while they really disgraced the book. This is the more probable, as no name is given either of the painter or engraver. Such a practice, however, cannot be too severely reprehended, as these plates not only give false impressions, which are worse than none at all, but do injustice to the memory of the worthy man and excellent traveller for whose productions they are tacitly made to pass. pp. 109, 10.

The plates in question could never have been intended to pass for representations of the objects described, but rather for plans: they are, however, vile and unmeaning. It is not quite correct, that the alleged errors are relatively consistent; since the erroneous observation which should make the northward be mistaken for westward, and the southward for eastward, would bring the southward into the westward. In making the river Kishon rise at the foot of Tabor, Mr. B. differs from former travellers, who place its springs on the S.E. of Carmel. That Mount Tabor was not the scene of the Transfiguration, even Reland is forced to conclude. Maundrell expresses strong doubts on the subject; and Mr. Jolliffe has pointed out geographical objections to the tradition.

sea.

Mount Carmel is described as a range of hills extending six or eight miles nearly north and south, coming from the plain of Esdraelon, and ending in the promontory which forms the Bay of Acre; having on the east, a fine plain watered by the river Kishon, and on the west, a narrower plain descending to the Its greatest height does not exceed fifteen hundred feet. Carmel was apparently the name, not of the hill only, distinguished as Mount Carmel, on the top of which Elijah sacrificed, but of the whole district, which afforded the richest pasture. This was "the excellency of Carmel" which Isaiah opposes to the barren desert. It is spoken of by Amos as "the habitations "of the shepherds," and by Micah as a pastoral solitude encompassed with wood. "The forest of his Carmel," if correctly rendered, would also convey the idea that it abounded at

one time with wood. It was also celebrated for the vineyards which clothed its sides. But its remoteness as the border country of Palestine, and the wildness characteristic of pastoral highlands, rather than either its loftiness or its inaccessibility, must be alluded to in the language of the prophet, Amos ix. 2, 3.

At four hours distance from the promontory of Carmel, keeping along the coast, the Travellers had to enter a passage cut out of a bed of rock, called Waad-el-Ajal, literally, the valley "of the shadow of death;' the centre of which was just broad enough for the passage of a wheeled carriage or å laden camel, while there were raised causeways on each side. The passage was very short, and there were appearances of its having once been closed by a gate, as places for hinges were still to be seen. It was from some similar pass, in all probability, that the Son of Jesse borrowed the figure of which he makes so sublime a use in the twenty-third Psalm.

At Cæsarea, by the Arabs still called Kissary, Mr. Buckingham observed the remains of a building with fine Roman arches, many of which were entire, and some granite columns, which would seem with strong probability to be referred to the time of Herod. The fort is the work of the Crusaders. Pococke's plan of the coast at this point, is stated to be accurate, but the supposed sites of the ancient edifices, are mere mounds of indefinable form, which can afford no basis for topographical conjectures. The small village of El Mukhalid, which occupies a very fine situation in a fertile tract, about seventeen miles from Cæsarea, is the supposed representative of Antipater.

At Jaffa, (Joppa, now called Yafah,) Mr. Buckingham says he was anxious to ascertain the fact of Bonaparte's having murdered his prisoners there in cold blood. In reply to his inquiries, he was assured by Signor Damiani, the English Consul,' an old man of sixty, and a spectator of all that passed 'here during the French invasion,' that such massacre did really take place; and 'twenty mouths,' he adds,' were opened at once to confirm the tale.'

The warm recommendation of the President of Nazareth procured for our Traveller, on bis arrival at Jerusalem, the most courteous reception at the Latin convent of the Terra Sancta. The friars, with the exception of two Italians, were all Spaniards, grossly ignorant, bigoted, and morose. The prospect of the re-establishment of the Inquisition in Spain, under the wise and pious Ferdinand, was spoken of by them with exultation. Let the Inquisition reign,' they said, and 'the Church will be secure. Let the Cross triumph, and the Holy Sepulchre shall soon be redeemed from the hands of

'infidels by another crusade, in which all our injuries will be avenged.' Gloom and jealousy reigned throughout the establishment, and nothing was talked of by the holy grumblers, but their sufferings and hardships, and the difficulty of obedience, while ardent desires were expressed to return to Europe, or to be sent any where, rather than continue at Jerusalem. Not

even in a solitary instance did I hear,' says Mr. Buckingham, a word of resignation, or of the joy of suffering for 'Christ's sake, or of the paradise found in a life of mortification, so often attributed to these men.' Chateaubriand's Spa-. nish friar, who represented the life he had led for fifty years in the Holy Land as un vero paradiso, must, he concludes, have been, if not a hypocrite, a rare instance of monastic felicity.

We shall not follow our Author in his tour to the holy places, not one of which is capable of being identified. As specimens of the imbecile legends which the visiter would dispute at his peril, it will be sufficient to enumerate, the bridge over the brook Kedron, off of which the Jews are affirmed to have pushed Jesus in his way to the house of Caiaphas, although the work appears to be scarcely a century old; the large stone below, on. which are shewn the impression of his feet in falling; the old tank and the large reservoir which contend for the honour of being Bathsheba's pool; the identical window of the identical castle out of which King David was looking when he fell in love with the wife of Uriah, the said castle being evidently of Saracen execution; the stone from which our Lady' ascended to heaven; the rock on which Peter and the sons of Zebedee slept while their Master retired to pray; the paved way where Judas betrayed him with a kiss; the sepulchre of Lazarus; the spot on which Martha met our Lord in his way to Bethany; the grotto where the Apostles compiled the Creed, &c. &c. We confess that the manner in which Dr. Clarke speaks of these clumsy forgeries, is much more to our taste than the excessive candour of Mr. Buckingham. The genuine tendency of the superstition which has originated them, is strikingly illustrated by the following cir

cumstance.

The possession of this spot, (the cave of the Nativity at Bethlehem,) once so mean and insignificant, is now disputed by contending sects of Christians with the same rage and animosity as that which marks their struggle for the Holy Sepulchre. During the last Christmas only, at the celebration of the feast of the Nativity, at which Mr. Bankes was present, a battle took place, in which several of the combatants were wounded, and others severely beaten; and on the preceding year, the privilege of saying mass at the altar on that particular day, had been fought for at the door of the sanctuary itself, with drawn swords.. • Pococke observed in his time,