B—, L—, and I, with one of the dragomen, and a native to act as guide, started alone for Gadara.

To ride unescorted "the other side Jordan" is not a wise thing to do, if it can be avoided. The success of the experiment depends upon the travellers not meeting a mounted party of Arabs. Flight is out of the question, for their steeds will soon run down a horse not bred in the desert; fighting is questionable policy, where blood alone can wipe out blood; and the third course, submitting patiently to be robbed, is not popular with Englishmen. We were very fortunate on the whole. The weather was delightful; the clouds had rolled away, and the "clear shining after rain" made everything look fresh and green. We met one or two stray horsemen, who, when the first surprise was over, uttered the pass-word 'Welcome,' and rode wondering by. Once, indeed, the turn of a glen brought us straight into the middle of an encampment belonging to the troublesome Beni Sacher, whom we wished to avoid. Happily the men were absent, I suppose on some marauding expedition; and the women and children, who rushed out of the tents to see the strange spectacle, could only assail us with uncomplimentary remarks and gestures which hurt nobody. Towards noon we entered upon a district abounding in steep hills and stony watercourses, where we judged that we should be tolerably safe from the Bedaween. Yet here we had our nearest approach to an adventure. My horse is so liable to fits of biting and kicking, pour encourager les autres, that, when we are obliged to go in single file, I always bring up the rear; and thus it happened, that, whilst winding round the precipitous flank of a mountain gorge, my companions were for a moment out of sight. A noise behind made me look round, and there I saw some men stealing up the bank of the "wady, with the evident design of cutting me off. Finding that they were perceived, they began to shake their guns, and to gesticulate vehemently, and to shout to each other according to the approved Arab fashion for getting up steam. Not wishing to draw their fire, ill-directed as it was likely to be, I went on at the same pace as before, until within hailing distance of the rest. Then we turned about, which brought our pursuers to a halt. There were eight or ten of them, and they took up a position behind the rocks and shrubs, as if waiting for others to join them. But though violent in their language, and making a show of presenting their guns at us, they did not seem inclined to close; so we rode on, occasionally facing round when they came too near, until we had gained a hundred yards or so, and knew that we might gallop off without any fear of the

bullets.

Gadara occupies a magnificent position on the crest of a high hill, from which for the first time the Sea of Galilee from shore

to shore is stretched out before us. The ruins are not very striking, at least not to those who come from Rabbath-Ammon and Gerasa, but the tombs are exceedingly interesting. They are, in fact, comfortable chambers, hewn out of the limestone rock, and closed by solid blocks of black basalt. These last have pins of the same material protruding at the corners, which work in sockets above and below; and so skilfully were the ponderous doors set up, that even now they are easily moved. They were all inhabited by some wretched-looking people, who are the sole possessors of the ancient city, and live only in its tombs. We are, of course, reminded by these tombs of the maniac whom our Lord restored to his right mind; but I doubt if it can be supposed that he dwelt in sepulchres such as these. They must have belonged to comparatively rich people, who would never have suffered them to become the haunt of a lunatic. I should rather suppose that he was in the habit of wandering about the graves of the lower classes, who were probably buried in open cemeteries, like the one which is still to be seen on the hill-side at Nain. He would thus become the terror of the neighbourhood, especially in a land where the custom is for friends to lament for days over the graves of those dear to them.

The sight of Tiberias beyond the sea reminded us that our day's work was only half done; and after picking our way for some time along the slippery street of Gadara, which is in places almost covered with ruinous heaps, we hastened down the steep path which leads to the Jordan valley. The plain at the foot of the hills is a complete shrubbery of oleanders. A single bush would have decorated an English garden, but here we were surrounded by them. The blush-coloured masses of flower blazed about us as far as the eye could reach; their dazzling brilliancy quite overcame the dark green of the foliage, and even tinted with roseate hues the clear waters which glided hither and thither, seeking for Jordan. Gladly should we have lingered in such a lovely spot, but we too had to make for Jordan; and after a good race across the level, we stood once more on the river bank. It was well that the mules had crossed below; for the stream, though not strong, was deep, and a few inches more would have obliged us to swim for it. Although our ride beyond Jordan did, strictly speaking, terminate with our return to the western shore, yet I would not part with my readers in the act of drying and dressing; and, indeed, the pleasantest part of the journey was yet to come. For nothing, to my mind, in all the Holy Land, surpasses in beauty and in interest the shores of Gennesareth. And those last hours between Jordan and Tiberias, what happy ones they were!

The path lay near the sea. At times we cantered noiselessly across patches of green sward, studded with oleanders, and

reaching to the water's edge; and then the stillness would be broken by the clattering of the horse hoofs, as we came suddenly upon a strip of pebbly beach. The sunset was calm, and, during the first part of the ride, exceeding bright; but, ere long, the emerald hills, which descend abruptly to the shore, threw a darkening shadow over the lake; whilst the rich, but shortlived hues of twilight faded one by one from the mountains, which encircle it on the east, and left them dull and indistinct. Nature sank quietly into her first sleep. "Her breathing, soft and low," alone told of the strong life that was at rest. great body of the waters reposed upon the strand in all the silence of a tideless sea, but the evening breeze was loth to die away. Ever and anon it swept across the slowly-heaving bosom of the lake, curling the surface into crisping foam; and then the tiny waves would lose themselves among the rippling shallows with a faint and gentle "hush"; and the evergreens would wake up and murmur at the stir, and nod to each other, and whisper a last "good-night," until the guilty zephyr had sighed itself away into the valleys, and slumber reigned again.

The

The steady tramp and the champing of the horses, the splash of some startled waterfowl, a passing interchange of words between the riders, these were the only sounds which really broke the quiet charm, and even these were not altogether out of keeping with the time and place; perhaps they rather served to heighten, by contrast, the peacefulness of the scene.

I am indebted to you, my dear Sir, for inducing me to revive these pleasant memories, and I hope they will interest your readers.-Believe me, &c. &c., Ex EDE CHRISTI.

JERUSALEM AT THE CLOSE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

HISTORY.

AMONG the many wonders connected with Jerusalem, few are more striking than her extraordinary vitality. Reaching back to the antiquity of nearly 4000 years, her former self buried, as Stanley expresses it, in the dust of her seventeen captures, she is still a city. She has recovered from her desolation by Titus; whilst of the various other sieges which she has endured, some have scarcely been less destructive, and others have been attended with miracles of deliverance, reminding us that the Lord is round about His people, as the mountains are round about Jerusalem. What place is to be compared to her? Rome, with a duration falling far short of 3000 years, has been exposed to about half as many sieges as Jerusalem has suffered captures. Nor has she passed through

calamities to be compared to those of the capital of Judæa. Rome has never been destroyed, nor has she remained under the dominion of strangers; but her conquerors became her children and her slaves. The plough has passed over Jerusalem: she hath lain waste at one time for seventy years, and again and again for nearly equal periods. At one time she was a heathen city, into which no Jew was permitted to enter; and at another, when her restoration was attempted, for the purpose of overthrowing the purposes of God concerning her, the attempt was made in vain. For more than half her existence she has been under the dominion of the heathen or the unbeliever; yet we never think of her but as the city of our God. Polluted, oppressed, and desolate, she is now not only a city, but a capital; the object of the fondest affection of her people, and of scarcely less interest to those who delight in the mighty works which have been done in her.

The siege of Jerusalem by Titus is a familiar subject. But what provocation brought the Roman army to her walls? And what was the course of events which, in the providence of God, ended in her destruction? Our present purpose is to trace those events from the end of the New Testament history to the time when the Roman army under Cestius was driven away and routed in the 66th year of our era.

The dominion of the Romans was always oppressive to the conquered. Forsyth, in his Life of Cicero, has described the Roman governors of provinces as vultures swooping on their prey. But to the Jews this foreign rule was peculiarly galling, from the real holiness of their law, from their own exclusiveness, and their well-founded but ill-understood expectation of a dominion to be restored to Israel. Their misfortunes began before the time of Felix, and soon after the death of Tiberius. For when, in consequence of a tumult in Alexandria between the Jews and the Greeks, both parties had to appear before his successor, Caius, (better known as Caligula,) and Apion, one of the embassy of the Greeks, accused the Jews of neglecting the honours due to Cæsar, Caius commanded his statue to be set up in Jerusalem, and sent Petronius with troops to enforce it. These acts of the Emperor would, no doubt, have led to a revolt of the Jews, had not Petronius acted with singular moderation. And afterwards, through the influence of Agrippa with the Emperor, and perhaps still more by the death of Caius, the Jews escaped his tyranny. Claudius appointed Cumanus, and afterwards Felix, governor of Judæa. We read in the New Testament that Festus succeeded Felix, and learn also something of the condition of the country under them. Albinus, who succeeded Festus, was a bad governor, allowing, for the sake of money, all sorts of injustice and crime. But it was Florus who, about the twelfth year of Nero (A.D. 65, 66) came next to him, who was the greatest scourge to the Jews,

and, according to Josephus, the real cause of the war which ended in the destruction of their nation. Who can read Cicero's orations against Verres, making us, as it were, witnesses of his excesses, his spoliation, his venality, his cruelty, his disregard of God and man, without feeling that when the full weight of such enormities fell upon the conquered Jew, intensified, as they would be, as outrages of all he held sacred, he was indeed in a condition answering to the prophecy, "Thou shalt be mad with the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt behold."

The whole history of these times is a perpetual and melancholy repetition of insults to the Jews in respect of their religion; tumults and insurrections; private, popular, and judicial murders; bloody contests between city and city, and between the Jewish and other inhabitants of the same city; the country wasted, bands of robbers ravaging it for years; the sicarii, a band of armed murderers, openly taking away life in Jerusalem itself, slaying even Jonathan the High Priest, and spreading universal terror; others, esteemed by Josephus as less wicked than the murderers, but no less injurious, pretending to inspiration, and collecting numbers in arms; the Egyptian false prophet, mentioned in the Acts, who did still greater mischief; and the power of the Governor used capriciously, or for money, on all occasions, but almost always to the detriment of the Jews, and at last systematically and designedly employed to accomplish their destruction. It was truly a diseased body, in which, when inflammation was checked in one part, it broke out in another. Albinus abused his authority in every way for money, but the exactions and oppressions of Florus were universal; he spoiled whole cities, and publicly gave the country over to robbers, that he might share in the spoils. His tyranny was so intolerable, that, when Cestius the governor of Syria made a visit to Jerusalem at the time of the Passover, the whole multitude of the people flocked. around him for redress against Florus. Cestius made them promises, and perhaps with some intention of giving them relief; but after his departure, leaving things as they were, Florus, being afraid that the Jews would be his accusers before Cæsar, did all he could to augment and aggravate their calamities, in order to drive them to rebellion.

It was a grievance small in reality, if it had not touched their religion; and beginning in the bad feeling and ill-will of one man, the gentile owner of the site of a synagogue at Cæsarea, or of the ground near it, to which may be traced the destruction of Jerusalem itself. There had been dissensions, which had broken out into open violence, between the Jews and Syrians at Cæsarea, and had been scarcely kept by the Romans from coming to actual battle. And this quarrel having been