Pilate's house or not-whether this is the Via Dolorosa or some other street, you know not, and can never know. If your faith relies in the slightest degree upon that order of testimony, behold your house is built upon the sand, and the rains of curiosity will fall upon it, and the winds of speculation will blow against it, and the floods of erudition will sweep it utterly away.

Sitting by the well of Jacob, you are lost in speculation why, of the two Faiths born in the East, Islam and Christianity, the one cannot flourish away from its birth-place, while the other withers and dies there.

So we sat and mused, looking up the beautiful Valley of Sychar, between the mountains Ebal and Gherizim. The Well lies at the confluence of this valley with the plain. Its mouth is very small, and is elevated but the height of a stone or two above the level of the ground. We rode up the beautiful valley. The bases of the mountains are terraced, and fine gardens fringe the stream, which flows between, and the town of Nablous, the old Sychar, promises richly to the eye.

It is famous for hating Christians, and is the scene of Poet Harriet's millet-martyrdom." I had three slaps in the face from millet-stalks."— The interior breaks the promise of the distant view. It is unutterably filthy and disagreeable,

and yet, as you stumble through its streets, you can well believe that God loved the elders of children, who are still beautiful, although they do give you "three slaps in the face" with millet-stalks, and throw stones at you from behind doors and corners. At Nablous I first felt the Syrian beauty. Deep,

rich, dreamy eyes haunted the air. The children stood in gay costumes by the broken fountains, holding their vases of water upon their shoulder as did the woman of Samaria, and not upon the head as in the South. They turned and wondered, they shrank and veiled their faces, then glided like ghosts, away.

A storm besieged us in Nablous, and a fellow Christian of the Armenian persuasion, secured us for his fleas during the time we remained. We housed in a huge chamber, upon the floor of which were spread our mats and carpets. It was only a large, damp, and dirty room, opening upon a roof whence we could see Gherizim, and a few palms, and watch for a break in the clouds.

They broke, the sun burst through and led us to walk. Remain in that damp and dirty room at Nablous, when you are there, until the sun will be your cicerone. None other shows Nablous, as he. Sunk in lush foliage, it is a more Italian Sorrento;

"Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape."

Seen from the mountain side, its masses of broken walls, arches, minarets, domes, and gardens, swarming with orange, lemon, pomegranate, fig, almond, and olive trees, make Nablous read to the eye as an Arabian poem to the ear.

We reached a picturesque fountain near the gate of the city, and pushing under archways, through a way that more resembled a sewer than a street, we climbed steep, broken stone steps to the Jews' Synagogue. It is the seat of the old Samaritans, the most Jewish of Jews, of whom, at Nablous, they declare only a hundred are now living in the world. A white-bearded old man showed us the venerable copy of the Law, which has come down from some marvellous antiquity, they call it three thousand five hundred years old. It is a roll of old parchment; but I saw less of its yellow complexion than of the golden-hued faces that were peeping at us through the open dome grating of the ceiling, but which as I solemnly glanced upward were hastily concealed, while bounding footsteps rang along the roof.

As we left Nablous the next day, and climbed across the mountain to old Samaria, now Sebaste, its remembrance returned to me, and remains, as of a beautiful garden, and, excepting Damascus, the most delicious spot to the eye in Samaria.

CHAPTER XV.

ESDRAELON.

WE left Samaria behind.

I sat upon a column under a palm-tree looking off upon the sea-like plain of Esdraëlon. An old woman in faded rags, and croning to herself, brought a little cup into which she poured resin, and then kindled a flame. The incense mingled with the twilight coolness. She placed the burning cup in a tomb, and vanished without looking

at me.

The twilight darkened, and the yellow moon hung large over the hills where the Witch of Endor lived. A young girl stole out of the town, bearing a taper, and gathering the veil closer around her face, as she saw the figure of a man and a Giaour. She drew from her robe a delicate vase, and filling it with incense, she lighted it, and placed it in a tomb. Then, regardless of me, she glided awayleaving me sitting upon the column, under a

palm-tree, remembering the mighty story of that plain.

I was looking from the cemetery of Djneen, on the edge of the great plain of Esdraëlon, the famed battle-field of the Old Testament, the most memorable field of history.

Your recollections, as you contemplate that plain, are like visions of the night, they are so mighty, yet to you so unreal. In my dreams, as I looked, wonderful phantom hosts marshalled themselves upon the vague vastness of the plain over which snowy Hermon made Switzerland in the north, and green Tabor was a graceful Italy. The whirring rush of ghostly chariots announced the fate of Sisera; and Josiah, King of Judah, fell under a pitiless rain of Egyptian arrows. In vision, the Prophet Elisha fled along the plain, and the LeperGeneral of Damascus passed, going to wash in Jordan, and Saul, hidden in night, crept stealthily to the Witch of Endor. The Roman purple gleams through the moonlight, as Vespasian rides down the lines of his legions, and the fierce Crusaders swarm over the plain. Every nation famous in history, has encamped here, and here is yet to be fought that battle of Armageddon, which shall decide the future fate of the East.

This is the dowry of the plain of Esdraëlon to memory and imagination, as you contemplate it