a thousand years ago. It is in the true Hebrew character which the Jews used before they were carried away captive to Babylon, and was very probably made from a copy written about the time when Josiah restored the law. Nablouse, which I had an opportunity of seeing afterwards by daylight, is situated in a gorge between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, once the scene of one of the most awful transactions either in Jewish or any other history—for on one of these mountains six of the tribes were ranged to pronounce blessings on the keepers of the law, and on the other the six remaining tribes were placed to curse those who broke it.* The city, surrounded by gardens and plantations, which give it a rich look, has twelve thousand inhabitants. It is better built, has wider streets than any town I have yet seen in Syria, and its position is romantic and beautiful. Its ancient name was Sichem, and its present designation is a corruption from Flavia Neapolis, the name which was given it by Vespasian. For a long time the local government of Nablouse has been intrusted to one or other of the two great families of native proprietors, between whom unhappily jealousies exist, which have been followed here by the same consequences as have have been produced by the same causes at Hawara.

* Deut. xxvii. 12, 13.

It is said

Elijah and Elisha were both Samaritans. that our Lord's miracle of healing the ten lepers was wrought near Nablouse, and we know that the grateful leper was a Samaritan, which might be one cause of the ready acceptance which the gospel found in Samaria, when it was afterwards preached there by Philip.*

Sæwulf, an early traveller, states that the order to behead John the Baptist was given here; and such is the veneration in which Mount Gerizim, is held by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, that they pretend it was never covered by the flood. It was on this mountain that Jotham told his early and remarkable fable of the trees going to choose a king, the moral of which was seen when Abimelech overthrew the city of Sichem and sowed its ruins with salt. At Nablouse, which is now a city of refuge to the Samaritans as ancient Sichem was to all Israel, Justin Martyr was born. The congregation of the Samaritans now in Nablouse does not number more than one hundred and fifty persons. The old priest made many inquiries after Dr. Wilson, the author of the "Lands of the Bible," who had spent some time in Nablouse, and for whom he evidently entertained a regard. The temple formerly standing on Mount Gerizim is in ruins, its sacrifices are interrupted, and the hour long since + Judges ix.

*Acts viii. 5. 6.

predicted has arrived, for neither on this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem, can they worship the Father without the permission of their Mahometan masters.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3.

I was on the roof of my host's house this morning to see the sun rise upon Nablouse. As the sun rose, the city with its mosques, minarets, and palaces embosomed in gardens and vineyards, looked rich and beautiful. The accents of the twelve tribes are no longer heard sounding from its sentinel mountains, but with those mountains in sight, imagination is able to call up some faint idea of the solemn scene in which the Jewish people were then engaged.

At nine o'clock, having bid adieu to my excellent travelling companion of yesterday, I mounted my horse to pursue the rest of my journey alone. As I rode through the Bab-el-wad gateway, a great concourse of people were assembled "near the entering of the gate," just as it might have been when there were judges in Israel. From the remains of some ruined walls, which I saw outside the present city, I conclude that its circuit was once

For a mile or

of much greater extent on this side. more, the road on each side was bordered by gardens of vegetables, and an abundance of vines, fig-trees, and mulberries. Water seems abundant here, and everywhere in this country when water is properly husbanded and married to earth, the union of the two elements proves ever most fruitful and prolific. When the gardens cease, the olive yards begin, and they continue for another mile. The trees in these olive yards seemed healthy and wellattended to, and in one of them there was a plantation of young trees. This neighbourhood seems more settled, and is evidently in the hands of some large hereditary owners, who are able to stand between the peasants and the government. When I had passed beyond the limit of the olive yards, there occurred a succession of water-mills; but the aqueducts that ought to supply them are in ruin, and they are consequently idle and silent, except when the heavens. not only send rain, but do the work. From these mills, the road began to ascend towards Sebaste, the ancient Samaria, and after passing an old tower with a mill and a ruined aqueduct, I arrived on the summit of the hill upon which the city stands. The hill, which is very bold, commands a confined but beautiful view of the valleys towards the east, and on the west, the view is only bounded by the

Mediterranean. Samaria, which Isaiah calls the head of Ephraim, was bought for two talents of silver from Shemer, by Omri, King of Israel, who made it the capital of his kingdom in 925 B. c., and such it remained until the carrying away of the ten tribes. Ahab, it is said, built a house of ivory there, but we are not to understand of this or the ivory palaces mentioned in Scripture, that the walls or exterior were of ivory. Ivory was probably used in them to inlay the floors, ceilings, screens, or walls of the chambers, just as I saw it used in the palace of Ras ed Deen, except that in Ahab's house it might be in greater abundance. When Ahab reigned in Samaria, it was the scene of many of those solemn transactions in which Elijah and Elisha bore a part. In his time also it was besieged by Benhadad, king of Syria. It was again besieged by the same monarch in Joram, his son's reign. During the latter siege the distress, we are told, was so extreme, that the fourth part of a cab of chick peas (not as our translation erroneously has it, a cab of doves' dung) was sold for five pieces of silver. The city received its original name from Shemer, its proprietor. Herod the Great who rebuilt it, and placed here a colony of six thousand persons, after it had been destroyed by John Hyrcanus, gave it its present name in honour of Augustus