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did not go farther south than Bethlehem, or more easterly than Bethany. Fain would I have done so, but lacked the opportunity. Hebron, Gaza, Beersheba, Jericho, the Dead Sea, and the lower fords of Jordan seemed to claim a visit, the desire to accomplish which was surely pardonable, and I trust it was not without gratitude for what I had been permitted to see, that I thought of these things.

During the evening articles already purchased were sent home and others brought for selection, among which was a book of pressed wild flowers. This I purchased, and the beauty of the flowers, the skill with which they have been preserved and arranged, and the association of the places where they were plucked have provoked the almost unlimited admiration and interest of those in England who have seen them.

Then followed the necessary arranging and packing of these things, some of them très fragiles, and thus my visit to Jerusalem drew near its close.

CHAPTER VII.

JERUSALEM TO NABLUS.

Thursday 15th. (7 a.m.) Having previously sent forward some of the luggage, and taken leave of our kind entertainers, we set out on our way for Samaria and Galilee.

Getting away towards the northern side of the city, we halted at the supposed Calvary, a little hill, whose claim to be the true Golgotha rests, among other evidences, on the circumstance, that excavation has brought to light many human bones from beneath.

When in Jerusalem we had visited the Via Dolorosa, so called from being the supposed way along which the Saviour bare His cross, and where are shewn particular traditional relics, of which, however, from little confidence in their authenticity I made no entry in my journal. The same remark applies to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where was pointed out to me "le tombeau de Jésus Christ," and where also professes to be Calvary itself, but in these instances, doubt grew into a conviction

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of the impossibility of the case, and I did not even accompany the guide to the latter shrine.

Here, however, at the little hill outside the city, with apparently such good claims to being Calvary, I dismounted, and paused to think again of the one great offering there made for sin, when the blood of the Son of God flowed for sinners-flowed for me. I plucked a twig from an olive-tree growing there, and preserved it as a sweet emblem of that peace which Jesus made by the blood of His cross, when "the chastisement of our peace fell upon Him." (Isa. liii. 5.)

The first village we passed was Ramah of the tribe of Benjamin, the birthplace of Samuel the prophet (1 Sam. i. 19, 20), of which the prophet Jeremiah foretold (Jer. xxxi. 15), that which was fulfilled as we read in Matthew ii. 18: "In Ramah was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not."

Hereabout I halted, to scrutinize a portion of the shaft of a prostrate column, bearing a Latin inscription, which I essayed to copy, but though many of the characters were still distinct, the difficulty of determining what many others were, and

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