upon both sides of Wady Deir or the river of Djerash. The magnitude and extent of the ancient city are attested by the present ruins. He seems inclined to the belief that it was the ancient Gerasa, one of the principal towns of the Decapolis. But this position by no means agrees with that given to Gerasa by D'Anville, who places it to the north-east of the lake of Tiberias, 40 miles to the north-west of this place. We cannot even abridge the long and detailed examination of these ruins. We have only room to observe, that their style of architecture seemed to belong to the best period of the Corinthian order, the capitals being uniformly ornamented with acanthus leaves; and the whole edifice of the temple, which is minutely described by our Traveller, he decidedly prefers in point of taste and magnificence to every public building of the same kind in Syria, the temple of the sun at Palmyra excepted.

The population of the Haouran is computed by Burckhardt, exclusively of the Arabs who frequent the plain, the mountain, and the Ledja, at about 50 or 60,000, of whom 6 or 7,000 are Druses, and 3,000 Christians. The Turks and Christians have the same mode of life, and in their dress, manners, &c. resemble the Arabs. They seldom quarrel, but when discords happen, the Christian fears not to strike the Turk, or to execrate his religion, a crime which in every town of Syria would expose the offender to death.

Hospitality to strangers,' observes Mr. Burckhardt, is another characteristic common to the Arabs, and to the people of the Haouran. A traveller may alight at any house he pleases; a mat will immediately be spread for him, coffee made, and a breakfast or dinner set before him. It has often happened to me, that several persons presented themselves, each begging that I would lodge at his house; and this hospitality is not confined to the traveller; his horse or camel is also fed, the first with half or three quarters of a moud (about 19 lbs.) of barley, the second with straw. But I was often dissatisfied, because less than a moud is not sufficient for a horse on a journey, which, according to the customs of these countries, is fed only in the evening. As it would be an affront to buy any corn, the horse remains ill fed. On returning to the house of the Sheikh, after my tour through the desert, one of my Druse guides insisted upon my taking my horse to his stables instead of the Sheikh's; when I was about to depart, the Druse brought my horse to the door, and when I complained that he had fallen off in the few days I had remained there, the Sheikh said to me, "You are ignorant of the ways of this country; if your host does not feed your horse well, insist upon his giving him a moud of barley daily; he dares not refuse it." It is a point of honour with the host never to accept of the smallest return from a guest; I once only ventured to give a few piastres to the child of a poor family at Zahouet, by whom we had been hospitably treated, and rode off without attending to the cries of the mother, who insisted upon my taking back the money." p. 294.

In the summer of 1812, Mr. Burckhardt being desirous of obtaining further knowledge of the mountains to the east of the Jordan, and particularly of visiting the almost unknown districts to the east of the Red Sea, resolved to pursue the perilous route from Damascus to Cairo, in preference to the more beaten track through, Jerusalem, and Ghaza. Having assumed the most common Bedouin dress, and the most simple equipment, he mounted a mare, which he says was not likely to. excite the cupidity of the Arabs, and on the 18th of June left Damascus. Our Traveller's details of this journey are well, worthy of notice, but we have little space for them. But as neither Shaw, Clarke, nor any other traveller into Palestine, has minutely described Tabaria (the ancient Tiberias), we think it incumbent upon us to extract a part of his description of it.

It stands close to the lake, upon a small plain, surrounded by mountains. It is hot and unhealthy, as the mountain impedes the free course of the westerly winds. Little rain falls in winter, and the temperature appears to be nearly the same as that of the Dead Sea. Tabaria with its district of ten or twelve villages, is a part of the Pashalik of Akka. The Christian church is dedicated to St. Peter, and is said to have been founded on the spot where St. Peter threw his net. There are about 4,000 inhabitants in Tabaria, one fourth of whom are Jews. The Christian community consists only of a few families, but they enjoy great liberty, and are on a footing of equality with the Turks. The difference of treatment which the Christians experience from the Turks in different parts of Syria, is very remarkable. In some places a Christian would be deprived of his last farthing, if not his life, were he to curse the Mahommedan religion when quarrelling with a Turk; while in others but a few hours distant, he retorts with impunity upon the Mahommedan, every invective which he may utter against the Christian religion. At Szaffad, where is a small religious community, the Turks are extremely intolerant; at Tiberias, on the contrary, I have seen Christians beating Turks in the public Bazar. This difference seems chiefly to depend upon the character of the local government. That of Soleiman Pasha of Akka, the successor of Djezzar, is distinguished for its religious tolerance; while Damascus still continues to be the seat of fanaticism, and will remain so as long as there are no Frank establishments or European agents in that city.

The pilgrim Jews, who repair to Tiberias, are of all ages from twelve to sixty. If they bring a little money with them, the cunning of their brethren here soon deprives them of it; for as they arrive with the most extravagant ideas of the holy cities, they are easily imposed upon before their enthusiasm begins to cool. To rent a house in which some learned Rabbin or saint died, to visit the tombs of the most renowned devotees, to have the sacred books opened in their presence, and public prayers read for the salvation of the new comers, all these inestimable advantages, together with various other

minor religious tricks, soon strip the stranger of his last farthing; he then becomes dependent upon the charity of his nation, upon foreign. subsidies, or upon the fervour of some inexperienced pilgrim. Those who go abroad as missionaries generally realise some property, as they are allowed ten per cent. upon all alms collected, besides their travelling expenses. The Jewish devotees pass the whole day in the schools or the synagogue, reciting the Old Testament and the Talmud, both of which many of them know entirely by heart. They. all write Hebrew; but I did not see any fine hand-writing among them; their learning seems to be on the same level as that of the Turks, among whom an Olema thinks he has attained the pinnacle of knowledge, if he can recite all the Koran together with some thousand of Hadeath, or sentences of the Prophet, and traditions concerning him; but neither Jews, nor Turks, nor Christians in these countries, have the slightest idea of that criticism, which might guide them to a rational explanation, or emendation of their sacred books. It was in vain that I put questions to several of the first Rabbins, concerning the desert in which the children of Israel sojourned for forty years; I found that my own scanty knowledge of the geography of Palestine, and of its partition amongst the twelve tribes, was superior to theirs.

• There are some beautiful copies of the books of Moses in the Syrian synagogue, written upon a long roll of leather, not parchment, but no one could tell me when or where they were made; I suspect, however, that they came from Bagdat, where the best Hebrew scribes live, and of whose writings I had seen many fine specimens at Aleppo and Damascus. The libraries of the two schools at Tiberias are moderately stocked with Hebrew books, most of which have been printed at Vienna and Venice. Except some copies of the Old Testament and the Talmud, they have no manuscripts.

They observe a singular custom here in praying; while the Rabbin recites the Psalms of David, or the prayers extracted from them, the congregation frequently imitate by their voice or gestures, the meaning of some remarkable passages; for example, when the Rabbin pronounces the words, "praise the Lord with the sound of the trumpet," they imitate the sound of the trumpet through their closed fists. When a horrible tempest" occurs, they puff and blow to represent a storm; or should he mention "the cries of the righteous in distress," they all set up a loud screaming; and it not unfrequently happens that while some are still blowing the storm, others have already begun the cries of the righteous, thus forming a concert which it is difficult for any but a zealous Hebrew to hear with gravity.' p. 322-327.

We must only indulge ourselves in a few extracts from the long and somewhat elaborate account of the convent of Mount Sinai, although we are aware that it has been visited and described by Dr. Clarke, Turner, De Miot, and other travellers.

The convent of Mount Sinai is situated in a valley so narrow, that one part of the building stands on the side of the western mountain, while a space of twenty paces only is left between its walls and the

eastern mountain. The valley is open to the north, from whence approaches the road from Cairo; to the south, close behind the convent, it is shut up by a third mountain, less steep than the others, over which passes the road to Sherm. The convent is an irregular quadrangle of about one hundred and thirty paces, enclosed by high and solid walls built with blocks of granite, and fortified by several small towers. While the French were in Egypt, a part of the east wall which had fallen down, was completely rebuilt by order of General Kleber, who sent workmen here for that purpose. The upper part of the walls in the interior, is built of a mixture of granite-sand and gravel, cemented together by mud, which has acquired great hardness.

The convent contains eight or ten small court-yards, some of which are neatly laid out in beds of flowers and vegetables; a few date-trees and cypresses also grow there, and great numbers of vines. The distribution of the interior is very irregular, and could not be otherwise, considering the slope upon which the building stands; but the whole is very clean and neat. There are a great number of small rooms, in the lower and upper stories, most of which are at present unoccupied. The principal building in the interior is the great church, which, as well as the convent, was built by the Emperor Justinian, but it has subsequently undergone frequent repairs. The form of the church is an oblong square, the roof is supported by a double row of fine granite pillars, which have been covered with a coat of white plaster, perhaps because the natural colour of the stone was not agreeable to the monks, who saw granite on every side of them. The capitals of the columns are of different designs; several of them bear a resemblance to palm branches, while others are a close but coarse imitation of the latest period of Egyptian sculpture, such as is seen at Philo, and in several temples in Nubia. The dome over the altar still remains as it was constructed by Justinian, whose portrait, together with that of his wife Theodora, may yet be distinguished on the dome, together with a large picture of the transfiguration, in honour of which event the convent was erected. An abundance of silver lamps, paintings, and portraits of saints adorn the walls round the altar; among the latter is a Saint Christopher, with a dog's head, The floor of the church is finely paved with slabs of marble.'

The convent formerly resembled in its establishment that of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, which contains churches of various sects of Christians. Every principal sect, except the Calvinists and Protestants, had its churches in the convent of Sinai. I was shewn the chapels belonging to the Syrians, Armenians, Copts, and Latins, but they have long been abandoned by their owners; the church of the Latins fell into ruins at the close of the seventeenth century, and has not been rebuilt. But what is more remarkable than the existence of so many churches, is, that closo by the great church stands a Mahometan mosque, spacious enough to contain two hundred people at prayers. The monks told me that it was built in the

sixteenth century, to prevent the destruction of the convent. Their tradition is as follows: when Selim, the Othman Emperor, conquered Egypt, he took a great fancy to a young Greek priest, who falling ill, at the time that Selim was returning to Constantinople, was sent by him to this convent to recover his health: the young man died, upon which the Emperor, enraged at what he considered to be the work of the priests, gave orders to the governor of Egypt, to destroy all the Christian establishments in the peninsula; of which there were several at that period. The priests of the great convent of Mount Sinai being informed of the preparations making in Egypt to carry these orders into execution, began immediately to build a mosque within their walls, hoping that for its sake their house would be spared; it is said their project was successful, and that ever since the mosque has been kept in repair.

The discipline of these monks with regard to food and prayer, is very severe. They are obliged to attend mass twice in the day and twice in the night. The rule is that they shall taste no flesh whatever all the year round; and in their great fast they not only abstain from butter, and every kind of animal food and fish, but also from oil, and live four days in the week on bread and boiled vegetables, of which one small dish is all their dinner. They obtain their vegetables from a pleasant garden adjoining the building, into which there is a subterraneous passage; the soil is stony, but in this climate, wherever water is in plenty, the very rocks will produce vegetation. The fruit is of the finest quality; oranges, lemons, almonds, mulberries, apricots, peaches, pears, apples, olives, Nebek trees, and a few cypresses, overshade the beds in which melons, beans, lettuces, onions, cucumbers, and all sorts of culinary and sweet-scented herbs are sown. The garden, however, is very seldom visited by the monks, except by the few whose business it is to keep it in order; for although surrounded by high walls, it is not inaccessible to the Bedouins, who for the three last years have been the sole gatherers of the fruits, leaving the vegetables only for the monks, who have thus been obliged to repurchase theirown fruit from the pilferers, or to buy it in other parts of the peninsula.

The excellent air of the convent, and the simple fare of the inhabitants, render diseases rare. Many of the monks are very old men in the full possession of their mental and bodily faculties. They have all taken to some profession, a mode of rendering themselves independent of Egypt, which was practised here when the three hundred private chambers were occupied, which are now empty, though still ready for the accommodation of pious settlers. Among the twenty three monks, who now remain, there is a cook, a distiller, a baker, a shoemaker, a tailor, a carpenter, a smith, &c. &c. each of whom has his work-shop, in the worn-out and rusty utensils of which are still to be seen traces of the former riches and industry of the establishment. In the distillery they make brandy from dates, which is the only solace of these recluses, and in this they are permitted to indulge even during the fasts.