respect. Nothing but starvation could have overcome a garrison occupying it.

We clambered to the top of a tower near the south-west corner, which raises its shattered head above the rest of the ruins, where we sat and gazed out for the last time upon Lake Merom and its beautiful valley, framed by mountains on all sides. From this elevation we saw quite a number of small lakes in the valley, above Lake Merom. The level sun was almost ready to disappear beyond the ridges of the Lebanon, which were already casting their shadow over half the valley. The effect of the shading was very fine. It was one of those scenes in which nature seems to take on an aspect of beauty beyond its wont-when the inner secrets of things come out upon the surface, and God affixes his signmanual and seal upon his works. The moment, too, was auspicious. We three who sat together on that shattered throne of the god of war had been for a month following the footprints of the Prince of Peace, and were now looking for the last time upon the regions made memorable by his presence while he was in the flesh. No wonder if we were in a subjective condition which made us in a higher degree recipient of divine meanings in nature.

My last look upon Jerusalem from Scopus, upon the Lake of Galilee from the mountains to the northward of it, and upon the upper valley and the sources of the Jordan from the ruined castle of Banias, constitute a series of experiences for which I can never cease to praise God.

But the visitor to the Holy Land must not come expecting to find its beauty such as will answer to

his expectations or sentiments. Much of the country is a mere stretch of barren, rocky hills. There are not wanting many visitors who see little or no beauty anywhere. To my eye there are many beautiful landscapes; yet many parts of America afford far richer scenery. We see Palestine in the light of a religious feeling before we visit it, and the divine radiance constitutes a medium through which all appears in an unreal coloring. The effect of an actual visit is diverse in different individuals. In some the prepossession of religious sentiment is so strong, and occupies the imagination so completely, as to project itself upon all they see-so that to them the very desert becomes a paradise of beauty, every mountain glows in the light of another transfiguration, the poorest and most naked landscape is transformed, and where there is a real beauty-as there often is-it appears a very paradise, a new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven. In others, less under the dominion of their prepossessions, there is a sudden disenchantment. Jerusalem-they have seen a hundred cities more beautiful, and with more beautiful surroundings. Even the Mount of Olives suffers in comparison with the hills they rambled over in childhood. The most beautiful valleys here are yet not so lovely as those they have seen in Virginia or Kentucky. The Sea of Galilee itself disappoints them. In the revulsion of feeling which follows they are unable to perceive the beauties that would otherwise be apparent.

God did not select this region as the home of his chosen people on account of its beauty. The seats of the tabernacle and of the temple were not chosen

upon any grounds of natural superiority. The local background of divine manifestations was matter of

no

consequence. Perhaps it were better that it should not be in any high degree attractive. The glory of the Shekinah must be all its own. Revelation must run no risk of being overlooked and disregarded through the too great interest of its natural setting, lest the glory of the Creator should be transferred to the creature; nor yet must it be exposed to the danger of a sensuous degeneration through a too vital connection with scenes of physical enchant

ment.

The true interest of all this country is in its history, though a man in sympathy with nature will see much in the aspects of both the mountains and valleys to admire. Those who fail to do so are persons of local tastes, who can appreciate only a given style, and are quite incapable of a broader interest, either in art or nature, than that which attaches to objects. conforming to their type. The man of deep insight and true sympathy-the genuine lover of nature— who is open to all that comes to him in its multiform disclosures, will find a real pleasure here, even aside from the main purpose of his visit. But it is, after all, because Jerusalem was the city of holy solemnities, and the place where Jesus suffered; because the tabernacle was in Shiloh, and Samuel judged Israel there; because our Lord sailed upon the waters of the Lake of Galilee, and called his chief disciples from among its fishermen; and because that in the coasts of Cesarea Philippi he was formally confessed to be the Son of the living God, that we take any

special and deep interest in these places, and come from the ends of the earth to see them.

I

CHAPTER XXXIII.

DAMASCUS AND THE BARADA.

EAVING Banias for Damascus, the road passes

over the southern spurs of Mount Hermon.

Volcanic rock abounds. In fact, the road at one point touches the crater of an extinct volcano. The mountain-sides show the same features as those near the Dead Sea-the same violent contortions of strata with the same kind of stone. I think there can be no doubt that the whole of the Jordan valley, including the Dead Sea at one end and the Lebanon ranges at the other, was once disturbed by volcanic agencies so violently as to have received its conformation from them. Whether the unexampled depression of this wonderful valley is due to this cause or not, I am sure I cannot tell.

A few hours of steady traveling puts you on the

eastern side of these ridges, and into the border of the great plain stretching eastward toward the Euphrates. South and east some isolated ridges appear, but they are of limited extent and of no great elevation. Cultivation in this plain depends wholly on irrigation. In this edge of it many streams coming down out of the mountains are bordered by fields in the valleys which they make; but in every part where irrigation is impracticable it has the character of a desert.

Before coming into the plain we saw a good many small valleys in the mountains which were cultivated, and a good many herds of cattle which find sufficient pasturage in the mountains. The Druses live in these and in the Lebanon mountains. We were interested in the first villages of that singular people which we saw. One morning we passed quite a large one on a hill-side. The houses were not so closely crowded together as is usually the case in the villages of this country. At a distance the ranges of houses rising on the mountain-side, one above another, show very prettily. As we came near the village a number of boys came running out to the road with fossil specimens for sale.

The Druses originated, as nearly as I can gather, soon after the incursion of Islamism into this region. These Arabs of the mountains were but partially converted to that faith; and in the uproar and tumult of ideas then afloat several sects were formed whose beliefs were grounded upon the teachings of Mohammed in part, but modified by their own crude ideas and semi-barbarous customs. Of these sects the Druses were the most important, perhaps—at least,