mander of the American expedition, which visited this region in the year 1849. Under date of April 26th, he writes: "The heat rather increased than lessened as the sun went down. At eight, p. m., the thermometer was 106° five feet from the ground. At one foot from the latter, it was 104°. We threw ourselves upon the parched, cracked earth, among dry stalks and canes, which would before have seemed unsupportable from the heat. Some endeavoured to make a screen of one of the boat's awnings, but the fierce wind blew it over in an instant. It was more like the blast of a furnace, than living air. At our feet was the sea, and on our right, through the thicket, we could distinguish the gleaming of the fires, and hear the shouts from an Arab encampment. "In the early part of the night, there was scarce a moment that some one was not at the water-breakers; but the parching thirst could not be allayed; for, although there was no perceptible perspiration, the fluid was carried off as fast as it was received into the system. At nine, the breakers were exhausted, and our last waking thought was, water. In our disturbed and feverish slumbers, we fancied the cool beverage purling down our parched and burning throats. The mosquitoes, as if their stings were envenomed by the heat, tormented us almost to madness, and we spent a miserable night, throughout which we were compelled to lie encumbered with our arms, while by turns we kept vigilant watch. "We had spent the day in the glare of a Syrian sun, by the salt mountain of Usdum, in the hot blast of the Sirocco, and were now bivouacked under the calcined cliffs of Moab. When the water was exhausted, all too weary to go for more, even if there were no danger of a surprise, we threw ourselves on the ground,-eyes smarting, skin burning, lips, and tongue, and throat parched and dry; and wrapping the first garment we could find around our heads, to keep off the stifling blast, and in our brief and broken slumbers drank from ideal fountains." only by land that the effects of the climate were felt. Whilst on the sea, our travellers seem to have been equally exposed to its pestilential influence. We Nor was have seldom read a more graphic picture than that which Captain Lynch has given of the state of his companions, on one occasion, whilst sailing on this sea of death. "At 12.15," says he, "started for the eastern shore. A light air from the south induced me to abandon the awning and set the sail, to spare the men from labouring at the oars. A light tapping of the ripples at the bow, and a faint line of foam and bubbles at her side, were the only indications that the boat was in motion. The Fanny Skinner (the other boat) was a mile astern, and all around partook of the stillness of death. The weather was intensely hot, and even the light air that urged us almost insensibly onward had something oppressive in its flaws of heat. The sky was unclouded, save by a few faint cirri in the north, sweeping, plume-like, as if the sun had consumed the clouds, and the light wind had drifted their ashes. The glitter from the water, with its multitude of reflectors-for each ripple was a mirrorcontributed much to our discomfort; yet the water was not transparent, but of the colour of diluted absinthe, or the prevailing tint of a Persian opal. While busied with such thoughts, my companions had yielded to the oppressive drowsiness, and now lay before me in every attitude of a sleep that had more of stupor in it than of repose. In the awful aspect which this sea presented, when we first beheld it, I seemed to read the inscription over the gates of Dante's 'Inferno,'-' Ye who enter here, leave hope behind.' . . . To my disturbed imagination, there was something fearful in the expression of their inflamed and swollen visages. The fierce angel of disease seemed hovering over them, and I read the forerunner of his presence in their flushed and feverish sleep. Some, with their bodies bent, and their arms dangling over the abandoned oars, their hands excoriated with the acrid water, slept profoundly; others, with heads thrown back, and lips cracked and sore, with a scarlet flush on either cheek, seemed overpowered by heat and weariness, even in sleep; while some, upon whose faces shone the reflected light from the water, looked ghastly, and dozed with a nervous twitching of the limbs, and, now and then starting from their sleep, drank deeply from a breaker, and sank back again to lethargy. The solitude,-the scene, my own thoughts were too much; I felt, as I sat thus, as if I were a Charon, ferrying, not the souls, but the bodies of the departed and the damned over some infernal lake, and could endure it no longer; but, breaking from my listlessness, ordered the sails to be furled, and the oars resumed: action seemed better than such unnatural stupor." To the unhealthy nature of the climate, was owing the nervous fever which attacked several of the men forming Captain Lynch's expedition, and carried off Lieutenant Dale, the other officer of the company. He expired at a village twelve miles up the Lebanon, whither he had retired, in the hope of being invigorated by the mountain air. "Lieutenant Dale had reached the age of thirtyfive. He was a man of fine appearance and elegant manners. His loss," adds Lieutenant Lynch, "will be greatly felt in making up the Report of the expedition, the end of which he was permitted to behold, but not to participate in its fruits, nor enjoy its rewards." Last, but not least, in our enumeration of the fearful dangers of this sea of death, ranks that arising from the marauding Arabs who infest the region, and who still fulfil to the letter the prophecy of Scripture,—“His hand shall be against every man.” So great is the danger apprehended from this source, that to travel in the country without an armed guard, is to expose oneself to almost inevitable death.-Tayler's Vestiges of Divine Vengeance. THE RUINED CHURCH. (By the Author of the "Matin Bell.") "And if of old they so could feel The Baptistery. BEAUTIFUL and happy summer hours were those that I spent on the shores of the Solent Sea, at the time when the events occurred which are recorded in these pages. us I had been suffering from long illness, and a sorrow of heart which seemed to me even harder to endure, and pined with an almost sickly longing to find myself in some quiet lonely spot where I could look my sorrow in the face, with none save natural sights and sounds, to break that deep sad intercommunion. I fancied that, away from the busy haunts of men, I should be strengthened to render up my own will more entirely into the will of GOD, and of all the places I had ever visited, or read of, the one to which my sick heart turned with fondest longing was the beautiful Isle of Wight. Not indeed to those parts of it which are commonly frequented by the gay world, in its summer quest of amusements and re-invigorated health, but those still solitary nooks, in which the invalid and the weary-hearted seek and find the blessedness of solitude and fair fresh country scenes. There was, however, one obstacle which met at every turn, as we hunted over maps and through guide-books in search of the most sequestered corners. Beauty indeed was to be met with everywhere; tranquillity and unworldliness in many places, and quiet summer dwellings were to be found in all; yet one thing was wanting still, one, without which I could not have chosen the fairest of those fair spots, for even a temporary home.' Nowhere could we find a parish church, ordered in obedience to the Church's holy law, and from place after place we turned back in despair, as our inquiries for at Daily Service that one best source of constant consolation for the weary and the desolate, the absence of which casts a blank over nature's loveliest scenes,-met everywhere with disappointment. In all that lonely Island, though resorted to by so many, to whom illness and abundant leisure, must, one would think, make the privilege of joining constantly in the Church's prayers more than ever dear and necessary, there was no village church to be found in which service was regularly performed twice, or even once a day. My sister, who, with her husband, a clergyman, had promised to accompany me on my excursion, was scarcely less disappointed than myself at this unforeseen difficulty. One morning, at the breakfast-table, we took up, for the last time, our list of picturesque villages and hamlets, running over the names together, in the vain hope that one at least might have been overlooked in our inquiries, when my brother suddenly interrupted us. "Kingsleigh," said he, "Kingsleigh; surely there must be a Daily Service there; for I remember passing some weeks in the neighbourhood with my poor friend Langton during his long illness, and nothing would have reconciled him to a prayerless abode." "It has all been altered since then,” replied my sister, "there is the town of indeed, but that is two miles distant; much too far for a daily walk." A sudden smile lighted up my brother's countenance. "Ah; I remember now," he exclaimed. "Well: I will run down in a day or two and judge for myself, and unless my memory plays me false, falser than ever hope or memory did before, we shall find all we need, and much more than either of you fair ladies imagine," he added, nodding to us triumphantly as he left the room. He started the same afternoon, and Kingsleigh was the one topic of our thoughts and words until his return. Yet we feared more than we hoped, for there, amongst our heaps of unsatisfactory letters, lay one, the authenticity of which could not be impugned, written, not ten days since, by the curate of Kingsleigh, and enumerating, in parsimonious order, the scanty services. "Two on Sundays; one every Wednesday evening." On the evening of the second day my brother returned, success in every feature. "Oh Frank, what have you heard what have you seen ?" "All right," said he, "just as I promised you." "But do tell us all about it. Have you seen the church and the Rector ?" "Neither the one nor the other," was his summary reply, "but I have arranged everything to my own satisfaction, taken the prettiest cottage I could see, and if you are willing to confide in me, you may start on your journey to the silver Solent at a moment's notice." We were only too ready to obey, and in less than a week we emerged from the lumbering railway carriage, and stood upon the pier at Gosport, waiting to enter the steamer which was to convey us to the spot we had so |
