to be one of the strong holds at Engaddi, to which David with his men fled from Saul; and possibly it may be that very cave in which he cut off Saul's skirt; for David and his men might with great ease have lain hid here, and not have been seen by him. Beyond this cave, there is a spring of water that drops from the rocks."

The Mountain of the Franks, called also the Mount of Bethulia, from a village of that name near it, (though no such place is mentioned by ancient authors as in this part of Palestine,) is "a single hill, very high the top appears like a large mount formed by art. The hill is laid out in terraces, the first rising about ten yards above the foot of the hill: above this the hill is very steep, and on one side there is a gentle ascent made by art. As the hill was not so steep to the south, they cut a deep fosse on that side, to add a greater strength to it: the foot of the hill was encompassed with a wall. There was a double circular fortification at top; the inner wall, was defended by one round tower, and three semicircular ones at equal distances, the first being towards the east. At the foot of the hill, to the north, there are great ruins of a church and other buildings. On a hanging-ground to the west of them, there is a cistern, and the basin of a square pond, which appears to have had an island in the middle of it, and probably there was some building on it. These improvements were also encompassed with a double wall; and they say, that there are remains of two aqueducts to it, one from the sealed fountain of Solomon, and another from the hills south of that fountain." Dr. Pococke, from whom this account is taken, conjectures, from the relative position of this city, as near Tekoah, that it is the ancient Bethhaccerem, mentioned by the

prophet Jeremiah as the proper place for a beacon. (Jer. vi. 1.) The works of the church, however, are no doubt referrible to the time of the Frankish kingdom of Jerusalem. The tradition which gives name to the mountain, is, that the knights of Jerusalem held this place forty years after the fall of the sacred city. Captain Mangles says: "The place is too small ever to have contained even half the number of men which would have been requisite to make any stand in such a country; and the ruins, though they may be those of a place once defended by Franks, appear to have had an earlier origin, as the architecture seems to be Roman.We found it hollow on the top, with walls round it, and four towers, all much in ruins." There can be little doubt that this is, in fact, one of the works of Herod ; and its distance seems to agree with that of Herodium. That citadel was distant from Jerusalem about sixty furlongs. It was built on a sort of a moderate hill, raised to a further height by the hand of man, till it was of the shape of a woman's breast. It is encompassed with circular towers, and hath a straight ascent up to it." Water was brought thither from a great distance, and at a vast expense, the place being destitute of water. All which exactly answers to the description.*

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All these places may be considered as in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem. Another excursion usually taken by the traveller, is to

ST. JOHN'S IN THE DESERT,

WHICH is computed to be about six miles to the north-north-west of Bethlehem. The road from Bethlehem crosses the Valley of Rephaim. In about half an hour the traveller comes to a village called Booteshal

Joseph. Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 13, § 9; lib. xv. cap. 9, § 4.

lah, a village of Greeks; which for some time they succeeded in keeping to themselves, by stoutly maintaining that no Turk could live in it above two years. Maundrell states, that no Turk was willing to stake his life in experimenting the truth of it. But, a few years before Dr. Pococke visited the place, three or four of the inhabitants had become converts to the Mahommedan religion, and yet had the courage to continue in the village: thus destroying the convenient spell. Nothing of interest occurs in this route, unless it can be thought worth while to mention another "Virgin's Fountain," and a village and fountain of St. Philip, where, of course, the monks tell us he baptized the Ethiopian eunuch. Dr. Richardson took a different route to St. John's, as he went directly from Jerusalem; and we shall therefore avail ourselves of his account, as furnishing a further illustration of the immediate vicinity of the sacred city.

"I went out by the gate of Bethlehem, and turning to the right, crossed the line of the ravine, and proceeded in a westerly direction. In about ten minutes we came to a cistern, with very little water, said to be the upper fountain of Gihon. It is dug in the rock, in the same manner as the pools of Solomon beyond Bethlehem, plastered within, and supported by buttresses, and is not much inferior to the smallest of them in dimensions. Here we are informed that Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, anointed Solomon king over Israel. A small burial-ground lay down to the left; a flock of sheep were feeding around; their shepherd had taken his station on an elevated rock, encompassed with ruins, that rises on the right, to catch the beams of the morning sun, and with his almost tuneless reed was toiling at a native air. It hardly required the vicinity of Jerusalem, the

Mount of Olives, or a recollection of the wisest of men, to render this a most interesting scene. We proceeded over the hill, and in about twenty minutes arrived at the convent of the Holy Cross, which is pleasantly situated on the edge of a deep ravine; and there is a hole under the great altar in the church, where the tree grew, of which the true cross was made.* This convent, to the great annoyance of the Romish, is in possession of the Greek monks.

"We next passed the tombs of the illustrious Maccabees, situated on the summit of a lofty hill on our right, and had a distant view of the interesting country of Samuel the seer; and in about an hour after leaving the convent in Jerusalem, we arrived at the convent of St. John. This monastery is built over the spot where John the Baptist, the forerunner of our blessed Saviour, was born. How this place came to be ascertained as the birth-place of John I do not know.†

"This convent," says Maundrell, “ is very neat in its structure, and in its situation delightful. But that which most deserves to be noted in it, is the reason of its name and foundation. It is because here is the earth, that nourished the root, that bore the tree, that yielded the timber, that made the cross. Under the bigh altar you are shewn a hole in the ground where the stump of the tree stood; and it meets with not a few visitants so much verier stocks than itself, as to fall down and worship it."

+ The present Convent of St. John stands at about three furlongs' distance from the ruined convent shewn as the house of Elizabeth. "If," shrewdly remarks Maundrell, "you chance to ask, how it came to pass that Elizabeth lived in one house, when she was with child, and in another when she brought him forth? the answer you are like to receive is, that the former was her country-house, the latter her city habitation; and that it is no wonder for a wife of one of the priests of better rank to be provided with such variety." The Convent of St. John had, at the time of his visit (1696), been rebuilt from the ground within the preceding four years. The church he speaks of as eminently

However, in the church belonging to the convent, we read on the left of a splendid altar, the following inscription: Hic præcursor Domini natus est- Here the forerunner of the Lord was born. On the right is the altar of Zacharias, and that of the Visitation. The church is well proportioned, with a number of handsome columns, some tolerably good mosaic in the floor, and a portrait of John the Baptist stuck up against the wall; but it has a poor and deserted appearance, as if its votaries were few, and but little concerned about preserving its ancient grandeur. The situation, however, is exceedingly pleasant; the monks are provided with excellent apartments, and the refectory furnished me with a comfortable breakfast of coffee and melted butter.

"The prospect from the top of the convent presented to the eye a small cultivated valley, with the sides of the rising ground terraced, and planted with the olive, the vine, and the fig-tree, and many indications that this species of agriculture had been at one time much more extensive than at present. The lofty Modin falls also within the range of vision; it is crowned with the ruined palace of the Maccabees, and the burial-place of the same illustrious family.*

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"Having examined this memorable spot, we proceeded through the village, crossed a small stream that trickled along the valley, and wound our way over a barren track, which industry has cultivated in terraces, and which, though called the desert, is really beautiful, consisting of three aisles, with a handsome cupola. Artificers were still employed on the convent; and yet, the friars gave out that not a stone had been laid but cost them a dollar.

* Pococke says that this is a blunder; that Modin, where the Maccabees were born and interred, was in the tribe of Dan. The village on the hill is, he says, called Zuba. The tradition he

regards as unfounded.