Jew, who had lately recanted from Islamism; and intended quietly to poison him, thinking that nobody was aware of his plans. However, it happened that while we were paying a visit at our Consul's one morning, some friends of the poor Jew came and told him the whole story, and Mr. W. forthwith was taking means to let the Pacha know that somebody did know about the affair. I never heard how it turned out afterwards.

The revolution in France has had the effect, we find, amongst the more sensible people in authority here, of greatly shaking their confidence in the French. The Turks are so devoted to their Sultan, and so unaccustomed to extensive revolt, that they consider France having lost her king, as the greates proof of her weakness. And they repeatedly asked us-"why, if you have their king, can you not go and take their country!"

The population of Damascus is about 200,000, of which 25,000 are Christians, and 7000 Jews. Its size is increasing gradually; for the villages in the neighbourhood are by degrees becoming deserted by their inhabitants, who fly to the walls of a large town for protection from the Arabs. These come in marauding parties, and make away with all they can find in an unprotected place. A number of Arabs, followers of Abd-el-Kader, had lately come over from Algiers with the intention of settling in the country; but we saw the poor fellows wandering about the streets most wretched and disconsolate, and they very soon determined upon going back to their own part of the world.

March 29.

After three or four days' stay in Damascus, during which time my friend was very seriously indisposed, we started again on our way northwards. I thought we should never have got out of the city, so long a time did it take us to clear the streets and houses. As we passed through them very early in the morning, we found them strewed with dead sheep -all lying about with their throats cut; it must have been the day for

the butchers to kill their meat. When we gained the hill behind the city, we had a most extensive view of it all below us. The plain in which it lies is exceedingly flat, and seems to be surrounded by desert, and only rendered fertile by the stream which flows through it. This, which is called now the Barrada, and was formerly the Pharpar, is a small but impetuous mountain torrent, rushing down from the mountain range of Jebel-esh-Sheikh. Fed by the snows there, it flows through the city and the plain, turned off by the hand of man in a thousand diversions, for pools, fountains, or purposes of irrigation. The city, as it appeared to us from our elevation, looked like a mass of domes and minarets buried in trees.

We followed up the course of the Barrada, mostly keeping close to its banks. All is desolate and desertlike, except immediately in the vicinity of the stream, and there every thing grows rank and thick. You pass through a small village every now and then, consisting of a few very poor mud huts. The ascent is very rapid all the way; and in the course of a very few miles to Damascus, the river falls a thousand feet. About noon, we entered a narrow gorge, at the bottom of which the Barrada was rushing with extreme violence; here across it are the remains of an ancient aqueduct; and above, a number of tombs ranged along the side of the precipice. After we issued from this, we came to still higher ground, and here the wind was blowing with extreme violence, raising thick clouds of dust, that made it almost impossible to see our way before us. It was the most intensely cold wind I ever felt, and pierced through every thing; we could not bear to keep on our horses, and thus though we were walking, and encumbered with a multiplicity of coats and rugs, in fact every thing that we could lay our hands on, it was nevertheless impossible to prevent being quite benumbed. When we finally turned out of the ravines, turning a corner towards the north, the wind was driving round it with

such fury, that we were barely able to make head against it. One of our mules, presenting rather a broadside to the wind, was almost blown over, and we made our way forward with the greatest difficulty. Towards evening, we reached the upper part of the small plain, where is a little village, Zebedani, comfortably placed under the shelter of the bills. The wind still continuing, we found it impossible to pitch our tents, and looked about therefore for a cottage in which we might take refuge. We were most fortunate in finding a sınall room, wonderfully clean considering, and provided with a kind of fireplace. We put in here, most thaukfnl for such a shelter, and had not been so comfortable for months; the only inconvenience was, that there was no window to the place.

March 30.

This morning, on rising early, we found the whole ground thickly covered with snow, and a most tempestuous wind still blowing. Our muleteers hesitated to proceed, and though they said they were willing to go on with us if we chose, yet they strongly advised us not. The people of the village spoke in the same way, and represented the road as being very bad and dangerous to Baalbec. So we were most unwillingly obliged to give way, and to throw up all idea of visiting this famous place, as we could not lose one day, the steamers obliging us to be at Beyrout without loss of time. We then made up our minds to make ourselves as comfortable as we could for the rest of the day, and by means chiefly of a large fire of wood, we succeeded. The family to whom the house belonged were Christians, and a trait in the character of two or three little children struck us very much. They were

* We afterwards found, on arriving at Beyrout, that it was just as well that we did not attempt to come round by Baalbec. So tempestuous had the weather been, that several persons on the same route lost their lives in the snow and cold; and others with great difficulty did the journey in more than twice the usual time that it takes to perform it.

MARCH-1849.

hovering about the door, while we were at one of our meals, and so we called one of them, and gave her a small piece of biscuit. She took it eagerly, and was just going to eat it, when her brother (a little fellow not six or seven years old,) seized hold of it, and shewed her a little butter that was on it-and then nothing would induce them to eat it; they knew it was Lent. It occurred to us, that there was something of a good education here. We afterwards gave them a few little presents, which we had brought with us from Jerusalem. And in the course of the afternoon, I observed the little girl steal quietly into the room, and secrete herself in a dark recess at one corner. I thought she was merely there to satisfy her curiosity, and to remark how Europeans conducted themselves. But I observed that every now and then she seemed trying to come forward, but retired directly, not having courage enough to advance; and I saw too that she had something in her hand. So I beckoned, and encouraged her to come, and she stepped up at last, with a few little flowers that she had gathered, and putting them into my hand, blushed, and ran off. Such a little innocent instance of gratitude!

The situation of Zebedani is very mild and romantic. As we approached it on the evening before, it seemed all closed in by lofty snow-clad mountains; and dark and precipitous rocks rose immediately above it on all sides round. It is the place in which the first murder is said to have taken place where Cain killed Abel!

March 31.

On getting up early this morning, we found all the snow off the valley, though still on the mountains about. We ventured to advance, and were off by six o'clock. Our road led us towards the west, over the range of Anti-Lebanon, which runs nearly parallel with the Lebanon range. It is down the valley between the two that the river Leontes runs; and at the upper part of it are the ruins of

Baalbec. On gradually rising, we soon began to find the snow, and

I

had it not been for the guide that we had taken from the village, it would have been impossible to find our way, as no track of any kind is discernible. Fortunately, the snow was for the most part compact and hard; but every now and then, our mules found themselves walking over a thin cake of frozen snow, which giving way, lets them down into a bog beneath; and then we had all the trouble of extricating them.

After passing over the range, we came down into the broad valley, with the high snowy summits of Lebanon rising up straight before us, in the distance. When about halfway across, we joined the regular track from Damascus to Beyrout, which runs more to the south than the one by which we had come, as we had intended on leaving Damascus to go round by Baalbec. It took us nearly four hours to cross the valley; the land is exceedingly rich and well-cultivated. But they have little idea of using it to the best advantage; the road being no regular track, passed over the land just as it was all ploughed and sown; and as it was some fifty yards wide, (each caravan taking its own course across it,) an immense quantity of seed must be completely destroyed.

Towards evening, we approached the sides of Lebanon, and came up to a small village, Maksah, where we determined to remain for the night. The wind was blowing so keen and sharp from the snowy heights above, that sleeping all night in our tents was out of the question, and we accordingly went about to look for a

house, where we might take up our quarters. After looking over various stables and hovels, we settled upon what seemed to be the best; it was a house of one large dark room, without windows or chimney, and which served for the habitation of a whole family-human beings and animals. After we had made the bargain, there turned out of the place about a dozen women and children, who had been squatting over a fire in the middle; and several donkeys, cows, and sheep. On entering it, it was perfectly impossible to see any thing before you, it being impenetrably dark, and the smoke was so thick that it was difficult to breathe. We took up our quarters at one end, and put our servants and the kitchen at the other end, near the door, where there might be a near exit for the smoke. It was with great difficulty that we persuaded the whole family to find a lodging elsewhere they were all so anxious to take up their quarters in the same place, probably from curiosity. As it was, we sent the women and children away, and allowed two of the men to remain, since they seemed anxious to be on the spot to look after their property.

April 1.

This day took us across Lebanon, through some of the finest scenery, and over the most dangerous and difficult road that I have ever traversed, to Beyrout. We at length had reached the end of our journey, and, after a stay of a day or two at this most lovely place, embarked on a French war steamer for Alexandria.

How does the rapture, the inexpressible sensation attendant on sunrise, appear to seize all beings, to spread over the whole of nature! Previously all lay in night and darkness. The birds are still reposing with their heads sunk beneath their wings; the city-population, who perhaps have

never seen a sunrise, lie buried in sleep; even the early lark as yet mounts not on high: nature is a dim temple waiting to be illumined by God: when lo! a living wind passes over the landscape, and--light! 'tis light! In silence has the temple become consecrated. Perhaps the blos

soms of the trees, the flowers, the buds are sensible of the dawn. A ray of light! a sounding chord of gold in the mighty lute of nature !—— the lark awakens and soars aloft: woe to the man who is so void of feeling as to have beheld this scene without being conscious of the presence of God! In the image of that primitive sage,* the dayspring looks forth, takes hold of the ends of the earth, grasps that huge black night-pall by its border, and shakes the wickedthe robbers by night-out of it. Do you see that tranquil glory? that soft

eyelash of the dawn? how every moment it sends up a brighter radiance, how every moment it gives to the clouds around it a different hue? What colours! what smiling splendour! Who is it that has dipped the pencil there? How silent, too, is it all! the eye loves to repose on the soft lustre of the spot-an emblem of the mild countenance of God. To the pious man, on recovering from the rapture of the moment, the natural feeling is--prayer.

M. N.

ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION. -We do trust that the report will prove correct, that the Ecclesiastical Commission, as it at present exists, is to become defunct, and that a smaller number is to be appointed, of active independent character and habits. We stand at an immeasurable distance from our lamented brother, in his avowed conviction that the Church of England is "doomed." Thank God we see her rising more and more conspicuously as the grand bulwark of our land against Popery, and infidelity, and anarchy, and all the miseries which are laying waste the dearest interests of other nations. But the Church of England lays no claim to infallibility; and, ministered as she is at the hands of fallible men, it can be no marvel that she should suffer from their infirmities, and selfishness, and mistakes; and while we trust that many excrescences and appendages, which have thus been suffered to grow upon her and deform her beauty and impede her usefulness, are indeed "doomed," and will eventually disappear, she is destined to shine forth

with increasing lustre, and to receive more and more the praise of the whole earth. In our opinion it is far pleasanter and safer to aim at amendment than destruction. It is thus that the God of heaven loves to deal with his wayward children; and with his blessing we do not despair of seeing our beloved Church divested of these few deformities, which are in no way attributable to a fundamental, constitutional defect, but to the accidental misfortune of mal-administration. They are the best friends of the Church who are ready to seal the doom of all that is positively amiss in her, and we trust that we see tokens for good in this respect.

Mr. Horsman is rendering a most essential service to the Church, in the movement which he has made. We are anxious that her real position with the House of Commons, during the last session, should not be lost sight of, as we are persuaded that it will require every effort to keep up the Prime Minister to the discharge of the repeated pledges, on which alone Mr. Horsman forbore to press his

motions. For this porpose we are tempted to subjoin some extracts from the Record of last August:

"Mr. Horsman closed his ecclesiastical campaign by a motion which was even more successful than those which he has made since Parliament met last November. As in the case of each of his previous motions, his facts and statistics carried with him the general concurrence of the House. But as on all of these occasions he had placed a generous confidence in the promises of the Prime Minister, so too on Tuesday evening he yielded to the request of Lord John, not to divide the House, but to leave the matter in the hands of Government during the recess.

"The course which Mr. Horsman has adopted is one eminently practical. In the first instance he called attention to the faulty mode in which the Episcopal incomes are paid. He dealt in no vague declamation or doubtful allegations, but proved from Parliamentary returns made by the Bishops themselves, that the incomes even of those appointed since the new arrangement, greatly exceeded the scale fixed by the legislature, and that the contemplated improvements had been to a great extent countervailed by the manner in which the Bishops had carried them into effect. House and the country were alike startled by these disclosures; and although the friends of the Bishops of Durham, Salisbury, Chichester, and others, might dislike their publication, yet the Prime Minister admitted that such a system ought to be revised, and begged that a division might not take place on a question in regard to which he substantially agreed with the mover.

The

"This concession was the more easily granted, as the promise of a revision of the law was made at the beginning of the session. Mr. Horsman's next step was to propose a fusion of the Episcopal and common fund. He showed that there was no justice in the distinction; that although he himself desired a great increase in the number of suffragan bishops not having seats in Parliament, and not equiring great incomes for their sup

port, yet that the claims of the spiritual destitution of the great towns and manufacturing districts were paramount; and that the separation of the two funds had been made without the cognisance of Parliament, by one of those secret clauses, which, as on several other occasions, had been introduced into an Ecclesiastical Commissioners' Act, nobody knew how, and nobody knew when. Sir James Graham, himself an Ecclesiastical Commissioner, rose on this occasion, and professed his ignorance of the manner in which the clause of separation had been introduced; and it will be generally admitted, that if one so wide awake and so astute as the late Home Secretary, was ignorant of this matter of the Bishops' surplus, it is no marvel that the incumbents of small livings have experienced but a small part of the advantages promised, when the Ecclesiastical Commission was first established. Certain it is, that the feeling of the House was again unequivocally exhibited against the separation of the Episcopal from the common fund, and probably the more so, because it appeared that very little judgment, and still less economy, had been exhibited in the use of the surplus arising from the surplus of the Bishops' funds. Under all the circumstances, it was no wonder that Lord John Russell again assented to the general feeling of the House, and agreed that there was no justice in separating the Episcopal from the common fund.

"Once more the unequivocal sense of the House was manifested in favour of a third motion, which had for its object the correction of those flagrant abuses, which still prevail in cathedrals and chapters, and which was founded on a mass of information derived from various sources, sifted with great care, and tested at great expense, both of labour and time. Once more Lord John averted the division which he deprecated, by again yielding to the feeling of the House, and promising investigation and re

form.

"A fourth motion was made on Tuesday, as a refresher to the Minister at the close of the session, for an