This bird, they said,

charm him into consent. appeared among the ruins on every eighth day; and there were even some of the party who positively insisted on having seen him there with their own eyes; gravely adding, that its form was different from that of all other known animals, and its size enormous beyond description.

Such were the tales of the evening, to which we listened in silence. They were not totally devoid of instruction, inasmuch as they offered a striking proof of how strongly the love of the marvellous prevails among the uninformed part of mankind.

It was past midnight before the assembly broke up, when our Arab guides were as happy to be relieved from their presence as we ourselves were; for these villagers of Soof seemed to hate the Bedouins only one degree less than they did the infidels and necromancers whom they had made their companions.

CHAP. XXII.

FROM SOOF TO OOM KAIS.

FEBRUARY 2d. The rain fell violently at day. break; but as the sun rose its force abated; and from the alarming suspicions and suggestions of the people here regarding us, we determined on quitting Soof at all events.

We accordingly mounted; and Mr. Bankes being now without a horse, from the death of his own on the preceding evening, the Arabs dismounted by turns to accommodate him with the constant use of one of theirs. We continued our road from Soof in a N. W. direction, de⚫scending into a fine valley, and again rising on a gentle ascent, the whole being profusely and beautifully wooded with evergreen oaks below, and pines upon the ridge of the hills above, as well as a variety of the lesser trees.

This forest, for it fully deserved the name, continued for about four or five miles, when we opened on a more park-like scenery, the ground showing here and there a rich green turf, and the woods becoming less crowded than before. The soil of the road on which we travelled was

clayey, with a fine yellow gravel on the surface; and the track was broad and beaten.

As we descended to a lower level, the pines disappeared, and on the side of one of the hills, close to the road on our right, we observed a grotto, carefully hewn down in front, with an arched door of entrance, and a small court and cistern before it. On alighting to examine it, we found it to be an excavated tomb, now containing three stone sarcophagi, of the usual form and size. Were it not for the actual presence of these, we should have thought it to have been a cell of residence for some solitary living being, rather than a place of sepulture for the dead, as we knew of no ancient site in the immediate vicinity of the place, nor could we find any traces of other tombs near. Although this solitude had been chosen, and wild bushes had so overgrown its front as almost to conceal it from the view, this sepulchre had been violated as well as all the rest, and its cistern was choked, its court partly filled up, and its sarcophagi uncovered and empty.

We continued our route from hence, still in a N. W. direction, while the mountains of Nablous were pointed out to us in the distance on our left. We reached at length a beautiful dell, wooded round on all sides, where we found a small encampment of Bedouins striking their

tents, and removing from the more open part of the vale to seek shelter beneath the trees, as the rain still continued.

Alighting here to take a pipe and coffee, we met with two pilgrims who had recently returned from Mecca, and the salutations of peace passed between us as children of the same faith. Mohammed, the Albanian soldier who accompanied Mr. Bankes, had been himself at Mecca during Mohammed Ali Pasha's campaign in the Hedjaz, besides which, he possessed a sort of certificate of his having visited the great mosque of Solomon, which stands on the site of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem; and, at the same time that he talked loudly of Arasat, and the Caaba, he showed this, as a paper from the sheriff of Mecca. The ignorance of the pilgrims, who were returning to Sham, prevented them from detecting the imposition, and they were satisfied with seeing on it the double-bladed sword of the prophet, by which the infidels were to be cut off from the earth. I had myself learnt so much also of Mecca, and its pilgrimage, as to be prepared to answer almost any questions that could have been proposed to me by them, and therefore all went well with us. The Bedouins, however, as usual, never troubled themselves either about the prophet or his injunctions, and seemed