of ancient Palestine, here they join those of Egypt, and are nearly upon a level with the sea. The land, eight or ten leagues distant from us, appeared generally white with black undulations produced by the shadows; there was nothing prominent in the oblique line which it formed from north to south: Mount Carmel itself was not conspicuous; the whole was uniform and dull. A file of white and indented clouds followed the direction of the land upon the horizon, and seemed to repeat the appearance of it in the sky.

At noon the wind failed us; a breeze sprung up at four o'clock, but through the ignorance of the pilot, we overshot our mark. We were steering in full sail for Gaza, when the pilgrims, from the inspection of the coast, discovered the mistake of our German; we were then obliged to put the ship about, which occasioned a loss of time, and night came on. We, however, approached Jaffa, and could even perceive the lights in the town, when a stiff breeze beginning to blow from the north-west, the captain was afraid to venture into the road in the night, and suddenly turning the head of the ship, he put off again to sea.

I was standing on the poop and bel.eld the land receding from us with real mortification. In about half an hour I perceived something like the distant reflection of a fire on a peak of a chain of mountains; these were the mountains of Judea. The moon that produced the effect with which I was struck, soon showed her ample and blushing orb above Jerusalem. A friendly hand seemed to place this pharos on the summit of Sion, to guide us to the Holy City. Unfortunately we were not disposed like the Magi, to follow the kindly luminary, and her refulgence served only to light us from the so ardently wished-for port.

The next morning, October 1st, at break of day, we found ourselves becalmed off the coast, nearly a-breast of Cæsarea: we were now obliged to range again to the south along the shore. The little wind we had was fortunately fair. In the distance rose the amphitheatre of the mountains of Judea, at the foot of which a spacious plain descended to the sea. Scarcely any traces of cultivation were perceptible, and not a habitation was to be seen, but a Gothic castle in ruins surmounted with a falling and deserfed minaret. On the border of the sea, the land was terminated by yellow cliffs streaked with black; from these sloped the beach,

on which we saw and heard the billows breaking. The Arab, roving on this inhospitable shore, pursues with eager eye the vessel that scuds along the horizon; he lurks in expectation of the plunder of the wreck, on that very shore where Christ gave the injunction to feed the hungry and to clothe the naked.

At two P. M. we at length again descried Jaffa. We were perceived from the city; a boat put off from the harbour, and came to meet us. I availed myself of this opportunity to send John on shore, with the letter of recommendation given me at Constantinople by the deputies from the Holy Land, and addressed to the fathers of Jaffa. This letter I accompanied with a note from myself.

An hour after John's departure we came to an anchor off Jaffa, the town bearing south-east, and the minaret of the mosque eastsouth-east. I am particular in marking the points of the compass in this place, for a reason of some consequence: the Latin vessels usually bring-to farther out in the offing; they are then upon a ledge of rocks which are liable to cut their cables; whereas the Greek vessels by standing in closer to the shore, find a much safer bottom between the basin of Jaffa and the rocks.

Jaffa exhibits a miserable assemblage of houses huddled together, and built in the form of an amphitheatre, on the declivity of a lofty hill. The calamities which this town has so often experienced have multiplied the number of its ruins. A wall beginning and ending at the sea, encompasses it on the land-side and secures it from any sudden surprise,

Galley-boats soon approached from all quarters to fetch the pilgrims: the dress, features, complexion, look, and language of the masters of these boats, at once announced the Arab race and the frontiers of the desert. The landing of the passengers was conducted without tumult, but with a degree of eagerness on their part that was very excusable. This crowd of men, women, and children, did not set up those shouts, those howlings, and lamentations, represented in some imaginary and ridiculous accounts. They were perfectly composed, and among them all I was cer tainly the most agitated.

At length I perceived a boat coming with my Greek servant, accompanied by three of the religious. The latter knew me by my Frank dress, and waved their hands in the most friendly man

ner. They soon reached the ship. Though these fathers were Spaniards, and spoke an Italian that was difficult to be understood, we shook hands like real countrymen. I went with them into the boat, and we entered the port by an aperture formed between two rocks, and dangerous even for so small a vessel. The Arabs on shore advanced into the water up to their waists, to take us upon their shoulders. Here ensued a diverting scene. My servant had on a light drab great coat, and white being the colour of distinction among the Arabs, they judged that he was the sdeik. Accordingly they laid hold of him and carried him off in triumph in spite of his protestations, whilst I, thanks to my blue coat, rode obscurely on the back of a ragged beggar.

We proceeded to the hospital of the fathers, a plain wooden building close to the harbour, commanding a very fine view of the sea. My host first led me to the chapel which I found lighted up, and where they returned thanks to God for having sent them a brother-affecting Christian institutions, by means of which the traveller finds friends and accommodations in the most barbarous regions; institutions of which I have elsewhere spoken, and which can never be sufficiently admired!

The names of the three religious who had come on board to fetch me, were John Traylos Penna, Alexander Roma, and Martin Alexano. They composed at this time the whole establishment, the rector Don Juan De la Conception being absent.

On coming from the chapel, the fathers ushered me into my cell, in which was a table, a bed, ink, paper, fresh water, and clean linen. To form a true estimate of those comforts, you must be cooped up as long as I had been in a Greek ship with two hundred pilgrims. At eight in the evening we repaired to the refectory. Here we found two other fathers, Manuel Sancia and Francisco Munoz, who had come from Rama, and were bound to Constantinople. They commonly say the Benedicite, preceded by the De profundis-a memorial of death which christianity mingles with all the actions of life, to render them more solemn, as the ancients did with their banquets to give a higher zest to their pleasures! On a small, clean, separate table, they set before me poultry, fish, excellent fruit, such as pomegranates, water-melons, grapes, and dates in their prime; I had as much Cyprus wine and Turkey coffee as I chose to drink.

While I was thus liberally supplied with good things, the fathers ate only a little fish without salt or oil. They were cheerful with moderation, familiar with politeness; asked no useless questions and showed no vain curiosity. All their conversation turned on

the subject of my tour and the measures that ought to be adopted to enable me to accomplish it in safety: "for," said they "we are now answerable for you to your country." They had already sent off an express to the sheik of the Arabs in the mountains of Judea, and another to the father procurator of Rama. "We received you," said Father Munoz to me," with a heart limpido e bianco." This good Spaniard had no occasion to assure me of the sincerity of his sentiments; I could easily have discovered it in the benignity of his looks.

This truly christian and charitable reception in that land where christianity and charity took their rise; this apostolic hospitality in a place where the first of the apostles preached the doctrines of the gospel, moved me to the very heart: I recollected that other missionaries had received me with the same cordiality in the wilds of America. The religious of the Holy Land have the more merit, for while they dispense, with liberal hand, the charity of Jesus Christ to the pilgrims to Jerusalem, they have reserved the Cross that was erected on these shores for themselves. This father, with a heart so limpido e bianco, nevertheless assured me that the life which he led for these fifty years seemed to him un vero paradiso. Would the reader like to know what sort of a paradise this is? Every day a new oppression, menaces of the bastinado, of fetters, of death. These religious having last easter washed the linen belonging to the altar, the water impregnated with starch, as it ran away from the convent, whitened a stone. A Turk passed, and seeing this stone went and informed the cadi, that the fathers had been repairing their house. The cadi hastened to the spot, decided that the stone which was black had become white, and without hearing what the religious had to say, obliged them to pay ten purses. The very day before my arrival at Jaffa, the father procurator of the hospital had been threatened with the rope by one of the aga's attendants in the presence of the aga himself, The latter sat quietly curling his wiskers without deigning to speak a word in favour of the dog. Such is the real paradise of

these monks, who, according to some travellers, are little sovereigns in the Holy Land, and enjoy the highest honours.

At ten o'clock my host conducted me back through a long passage to my cell. The billows dashed against the rocks of the harbour with the window shut, you would have thought it a tempest; when it was open you beheld a serene sky, a peaceful moon, a calm sea, and the vessel of the pilgrims lying in the of fing. The fathers smiled at the surprise which I showed at this contrast. I said to them in bad Latin: Ecce monarhis similitudo mundi: quantumcunque mare fremitum reddat, eis placidæ semper undæ videntur; omnia tranquillitas, serenis animis.

I spent part of the night in contemplating this sea of Tyre, which is called in Scripture the Great Sea, and which bore the fleets of the royal prophet when they went to fetch the cedars of Lebanon and the purple of Sidon; that sea where Leviathan leaves traces behind him like abysses; that sea to which the Lord set barriers and gates; that affrighted deep which beheld God and fled. This was neither the wild ocean of Canada, nor the playful waves of Greece: to the south extended that Egypt, into which the Lord came riding upon a swift cloud to dry up the channels of the Nile and to overthrow the idols; to the north was seated that queen of cities whose merchants were princes; "Howl ye ships of Tarshish for your strength is laid waste! The city of confusion is broken down; every house is shut that no man may come in. When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people; there shall be, as the shaking of an olivetree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done." Here are other antiquities explained by another poet: Isaiah succeeds Homer.

But this was not all: this sea which I contemplated washed the shores of Gallilee on my right, and the plain of Ascalon on my left. In the former I met with the traditions of the patriarchal life, and of the nativity of our Saviour; in the latter I discovered memorials of the Crusades, and the shades of the heroes of Jerusalem.

Grande e mirabil cosa era il vedere, &c.

"What a grand and admirable spectacle to behold the two camps advancing front against front, the battalions forming in