and by the Christians as idolaters. The abomination of the cross had already been planted on their holy mount of Gerizim, but the persecution of Justinian offered only the alternative of baptism or rebellion. They chose the latter; under the standard of a desperate leader, they rose in arms and retaliated their wrongs on the lives, the property, and the temples of a defenceless people. The Samaritans were finally subdued by the regular forces of the East; twenty thousand were slain, twenty thousand were sold by the Arabs to the infidels of Persia and India, and the remains of that unhappy nation atoned for the crime of treason by the sin of hypocrisy." About sixty families are all now remaining, and these few relics of a once powerful people still dwell in their ancient capital, at the base of Mount Gerizim, under the shadow of their fallen temple.

The brother of my host was particularly fond of talking about them. He was very old, and the most deformed man I ever saw who lived to attain a great age. His legs were long, and all his limbs were those of a tall man, but he was so hump-backed that in sitting he rested upon his hump. He asked me many questions about the Samaritans in England (of America he had no knowledge), and seemed determined to believe that there were many in that country, and told me that I might say to them, wherever I found them, that there they believed in one omnipotent and eternal God, the five Books of Moses, and a future Messiah, and the day of the Messiah's coming to be near at hand; that they practised circumcision, went three times a year up to Mount Gerizim, "the everlasting mountain," to worship and offer sacrifice, and once a year pitched their tents and left their virgins alone on the mount for seven days, expecting that one of them would conceive and bring forth a son, who should be the Messiah; that they allowed two wives, and, in case of barrenness, four; that the women were not permitted to enter the synagogue, except once a year during fast, but on

"PAAS" IN SAMARIA.

243

no account were they permitted to touch the sacred scroll; and that, although the Jews and Samaritans had dealings in the market-places, &c., they hated each other now as much as their fathers did before them.

I asked him about Jacob's well; he said he knew the place, and that he knew our Saviour, or Jesus Christ, as he familiarly called him, very well; he was Joseph the carpenter's son, of Nazareth; but that the story which the Christians had about the woman at the well was all a fiction; that Christ did not convert her; but that, on the contrary, she laughed at him, and even refused to give him water to drink.

over.

The information I received from these old men is more than I have ever seen in print about this reduced and singular people, and I give it for what it may be worth. cannot help mentioning a little circumstance, which serves to illustrate the proverb that boys will be boys all the world While I was exploring the mysteries of the Samaritan creed, it being the season of Easter, a fine chubby little fellow came to me with a couple of eggs died yellow, and trying them on his teeth, just as we used to do in my boyish days (did we learn it from them or they from us ?)—gave me a choice; and, though it may seem a trifling incident to the reader, it was not an uninteresting circumstance to me, this celebration of my "paas" in the ancient Sychem, cracking eggs with a Samaritan boy.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Sebaste.-Ruins of the Palace of Herod.-Mount Tabor.-Nazareth.Scriptural Localities.-Tiberias.-An English Sportsman.-Bethsaida and Chorazin.-Capernaum.-Zaffad.-Arrival at Acre.

Ar about eight o'clock in the morning we left Naplous; the lepers were lying at the gate as before; not permitted to enter the walls of the city, but living apart and perpetuating among themselves their loathsome race. The valley of Naplous was, if possible, more beautiful by morning than by evening light, shaded by groves of figs, olives, almonds, and apricots in full bloom, and bounded by lofty mountains, with a clear and beautiful stream winding and murmuring through its centre. Until I came to this place I had frequently said to myself that I would not give the estate of a wealthy gentleman in Geneseo for the whole kingdom of David; but there was a rare and extraordinary beauty here, even in the hands of the Arab Fellahs. Men and women were stealing among the trees, in gayly-coloured apparel, and, instead of the turban or tarbouch, the men wore a long red cap, with the tassel hanging jantily like that of a Neapolitan. For more than an hour we followed the course of the stream, and nothing could be more beautifully picturesque than the little mills on its banks; low, completely imbosomed among trees, and with their roofs covered with grass, and sometimes the agreeable sound of a waterfall was the first intimation we had of their presence. There was something exceedingly rural and poetic in their appearance. I went down to one of them, more than usually beautiful, hoping to be greeted by some lovely "maid of the mill;"

TOMB OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.

245 but, as if it were determined that everything like illusion in the East should be destroyed for my especial benefit, the sight of one chamber, filled with sacks of grain, sheep and goats, and all kinds of filth, and a young girl sitting in the door, with the head of an old woman in her lap, occupied as is constantly seen in every miserable town in Italy, drove me away perfectly disgusted.

Leaving the valley, we turned up to the right, and, crossing among the mountains, in two hours came in sight of the ruins of Sebaste, the ancient Samaria, standing upon a singularly bold and insulated mountain, crowned with ruins. The capital of the ten tribes of Israel, where Ahab built his palace of ivory; where, in the days of Jereboam, her citizens sat in the lap of luxury, saying to their masters 66 come and let us drink," destroyed by the Assyrians, but rebuilt and restored to more than its original splendour by Herod, now lies in the state foretold by the prophet Amos; "her inhabitants and their posterity are taken away." The ancient Samaritans are all gone, and around the ruins of their palaces and temples are gathered the miserable huts of the Arab Fellahs. Climbing up the precipitous ascent of the hill, we came to the ruins of a church, or tower, or something else, built by our old friend the Lady Helena, and seen to great advantage from the valley below. The Lady Helena, however, did not put together all this stone and mortar for the picturesque alone; it was erected over, and in honour of, the prison where John the Baptist was beheaded, and his grave. I knew that this spot was guarded with jealous care by the Arabs, and that none but Mussulmans were permitted to see it; but this did not prevent my asking admission; and, when the lame sheik said that none could enter without a special order from the pacha, Paul rated him soundly for thinking we would be such fools as to come without one; and, handing him our travelling firman, the sheik kissed the seal, and, utterly unable to determine for

himself whether the order was to furnish me with horses or admit me to mosques, said he knew he was bound to obey that seal, and do whatever the bearer told him, and hobbled off to get the key.

I

Leaving our shoes at the door, in one corner of the enclosure, we entered a small mosque with whitewashed walls, hung with ostrich eggs, clean mats for the praying Mussulmans, a sort of pulpit, and the usual recess of the Kebla. In the centre of the stone floor was a hole opening to the prison below, and, going outside, and descending a flight of steps, we came to the prison chamber, about eight paces square; the door, now broken and leaning against the wall, like the doors in the sepulchres of the kings at Jerusalem, was a slab cut from the solid stone, and turning on a pivot. On the opposite side were three small holes, opening to another chamber, which was the tomb of the Baptist. looked in, but all was dark; the Mussulman told me that the body only was there; that the prophet was beheaded at the request of the wife of a king, and I forget where he said the head was. This may be the prison where the great forerunner of the Lord was beheaded; at least no man can say that it is not; and leaving it with the best disposition to believe, I ascended to the ruined palace of Herod, his persecutor and murderer. Thirty or forty columns were still standing, the monuments of the departed greatness of its former tenant. On one side, towards the northeast, where are the ruins of a gate, there is a double range of Ionic columns. I counted more than sixty, and, from the fragments I was constantly meeting, it would seem as if a double colonnade had extended all around.

The palace of Herod stands on a table of land, on the very summit of the hill, overlooking every part of the surrounding country; and such were the exceeding softness and beauty of the scene, even under the wildness and waste of Arab cultivation, that the city seemed smiling in the midst