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valley, through the late exceptional rains, is in part a swamp, and my horse sank into it up to his breast with me on its back, and glad I was to get out again, as Christian from the Slough of Despond.

From Jericho across the Jordan plain a ride of some twenty miles brings us to the lower hills which underlie the grand mountains of Moab. The former rise at Salt to about 3,000 ft. above the sea, and a long wearisome monotony of rocky heights it is, by which at last one's patience was rewarded (not till after sunset) by seeing beneath one's feet the strange old town of the Bedawin, caverned as it were in the heart of the earth.

After travelling eight hours without the sight of human habitation, it was a comfort to see even such a drear dark place as Salt, but almost impossible to think that Ahab or any other king could ever have risked his life in fighting for such a grim-looking place, with scarce a feature to recommend it. However, the good old pastor here, Mr. Jamal, says it is the key to all the lands lying eastward, Moab, Ammon, &c., and possibly it may once have had its days of glory. Its one charm to me is the old pastor and his flock, who reminds me that he heard me preach the C. M. S. sermon at St. Bride's in 1884, and himself spoke at the morning C. M. S. meeting. He translated for me a sermon yesterday morning (Epiphany Day), in presence of rather a wild-looking Arabic flock, and to-day I heard his children catechized, who are chiefly Greeks. The Latins also have found entrance, and have built a church. The journey I took from Jericho to the Jordan must have been much the same that Elijah took to the place of his translation, so that altogether the memories of these parts are very agreeable and refreshing.

Shechem, Jan. 12.

Mr. Jamal is something like Bishop Dupanloup, I should say, in his excellence in catechizing, a real lamp burning and shining in the midst of the wild Bedawin of the lower ranges of the Moab hills. He is a little Elisha up there, minus the she-bears, though his rough hairy dress almost calls Elijah's mantle to mind. I told him I should always connect two names with Salt, one Micaiah's, the other Jamal's, which made him smile pleasantly, of course.

On the way I had to sleep on a very dank wet field, as no hut even was available: for forty miles only two dwellings were in sight, one the ferryman's over the Jordan, and the other a Turkish barrack, whose inmates refused to give me a night's lodging. I brought away lumbago of course, and should have brought worse but that the muleteers spread on the rain-sodden ground a sackcloth bag with chopped straw in it, and your Indian rizais did the rest for me.

It is the week of prayer-meetings, and I am to give an address this evening and celebrate to-morrow. I partly rest here six days because of the quiet of it, and partly because I have an

excellent Arabic teacher here, and I always get a fresh push on in my studies with such a man.

Jan. 14. I miss my old dragoman much, and have in vain tried to find another. Two I tried have both proved failures, and in my state of head it is very unsafe being answerable for everything. The cold and damp is trying, and Shechem in its hollow between the mount of cursing and blessing especially so.

The Samaritan high priest called yesterday and sat an hour or more. We had a long chat in Arabic over the prophecies of the Old Testament. His father was very near becoming a Christian, and Mr. F. thinks quite died in the faith of Christ. There are only about 200 Samaritans left altogether. I told the priest the great want in these parts was a real John the Baptist to be raised up in them, like him whose head is said to be preserved in a small chapel on Mount Ebal, and his body at Sebastiyeh, and that I wished that prophet might be the priest himself, witnessing to the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. this he looked rather taken aback and astonished.

At

It will comfort you to know that I am able to carry on some little missionary work in all places I come to, besides talking to muleteers and others on the way; besides these, to do any good one would be obliged to be, like Orpheus, talking to the rocks, or 'causing the stones to cry out,' as our Lord said.

Mount Tabor (Latin Hospice),

Jan. 16, 1888.

One goes back to the days of Deborah and Barak, and fine spots there are on the lower slopes where a force of 10,000 men might have been congregated under the prophetess' direction; and below is the Kishon plain, whose waters gleam in their far-off course to the western sea, where Sisera's forces were swept away. I made the lady workers smile at Jerusalem by telling them it was a great matter the Deborahs were there in growing force, but the worst was the Baraks did not come after them, and so the grand old days of the Judges were not repeated as they should be! The Baraks, if there are any, are mostly of the Latin Church and the Russian, with a very trifling Prussian band of missionaries, among whom the veteran Mr. Schneller is a prince. Mr. Zeller deserves great respect for his quiet, steady perseverance in spite of diffi culties, and Mr. Kelk, also of the Jews' Society. But the English Church wants recruits sadly, and the workers seem a little out of heart, except the ladies, who are undaunted like Amazons.

Tiberias, Jan. 20.

Marches of eight and nine hours respectively brought me from Nablous to the top of Tabor, where I stayed two nights with the Latin monks, whose dair or convent is in the midst of curious old ruined churches and fortresses. Of the former there are two, one

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of them more ancient and ascribed to the Empress Helena, the other of the Crusading period. These have been recovered by excavations so far as the foundations, and portions of walls, arches and pillars. The views every way from Mount Tabor are most inspiring and impressive; only the heavy clouds and encircling mists darkened the prospect somewhat. It was really cold with fireless rooms and stone floors, but I got no harm, and on Friday, by an exhausting six hours' march over morasses and wastes strewn with basaltic boulders most trying for the horses' feet, descended from Kurûn Hattin round the opposite brow of a hill upon the Lake of Galilee and its little town of Tiberias. For one night the Latin monk, a most forbidding and intensely bigoted priest, allowed me reluctantly to put up at the convent... Dr. Torrance had gone to Nazareth for three days, and Miss T. kindly let me occupy his room for three nights, and the Ewings of the same mission offered a small prophet's chamber, else I know not what I should have done. I was anxious to stay over to-day to recruit my strength, and see something of the beauties and most striking features of the scenery of this holy lake, and the wondrous play of light and shade on its banks, as well as to see something of the mission schools also, and work among the Jews. It is a Scotch Jewish Mission, in fact, of recent establishment. missionaries are quite of the highest and best type of Scotch workers, and nothing could be kinder and more cordial than their reception.

The

Yesterday Mr. Ewing took me for a walk on the slopes above the lake, and pointed out the sites of Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethsaida. They have two mission boats provided by friends in England, and take venturous trips across to the shores of the Hauran and Gergesene side of the lake. They propose a little sail to-morrow, but the weather is too unsettled to cross, for even yesterday the waves suddenly grew all but boisterous as we looked on; one's heart grows full of thankfulness, joy, and amazement in looking on these spots and scenes. I doubted before whether any such pleasurable realization of the past was possible. I am satisfied now, it is, and I would on no account have missed it. How forcibly these words flashed across my mind two days since, Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in Thy Name!' Jan. 21. To-day has been given to Miss Fenton's school inspection . . . and a most refreshing little row on the Sea of Galilee to the spot where the Jordan issues again at the far south of the lake. There we had a little picnic, and recollected like scenes of a more sacred and solemn character as recorded by the Evangelists. A sort of Sabbath rest and sanctity seemed to rest upon and pervade the scene. To talk of lesser subjects seemed almost profane.

After many dark and clouded days the landscape rejoiced in bright sunshine, and the vast expanse of Hermon snows flashed

it back brilliantly. . . . Tiberias has become a very shrunken and diminutive place: it seems richest in tombs of its former men of learning and ruins of its former palaces, Herodian and others. It hugs the seashore, and the mud of its streets is almost impassable. The Jews in it are supported chiefly from Europe it appears, and all in it seem spiritless and out of heart. Miss Fenton's school of sixty girls seems a redeeming feature. About twenty of these are Mohammedans; and the Greeks and Latins, who were antagonistic at first, have been obliged to give in to the mothers, who appreciate the teaching given, and especially the character formed, and have quite set their priests at defiance in the matter. The low and unwholesome situation drives the missionaries away to Safed for five months in the year, where they have like schools for Jews and Moslems.

Jan. 22. Dr. Torrance returned last night and brought a lady from Nazareth with him, as she required change. I am a little in trouble therefore, as I occupy the one spare room. All will turn

out for the best doubtless, but I have not often been driven to such straits for a lodging, and horses I expected from Nazareth have not arrived. Travellers usually take tents with them I suppose, and the loss of my dragoman is specially a contretemps.

Tyre, Jan. 29, 1889.

It has been a strangely varied week of roaming and rambling in almost pathless wilds and amidst strange vicissitudes of things and persons; hard fights with the elements and adverse weather, and difficulties in getting proper accommodation and carrying out one's original plans.

I am, of course, no little gratified to find this brief rest in a place of such singular interest as ancient Tyre, which it was scarcely in my plan to visit, but incessant storms of rain, and roads thereby rendered scarcely passable, landed me here at length as the most possible of seeming impossibles. I think my last was from Tiberias. . . . On Thursday morning last the whole party (Dr. T. excepted, whose hospital work forbade) took me part of my first day's march hither by boat on the Lake of Gennesareth as far as Tell Hum (Capernaum as the best authorities seem pretty well agreed). . . . It has some grandly massive ruins of an ancient synagogue which may or may not have been the one in which our Blessed Lord taught. Capitals and pedestals of ancient columns lie scattered about with ruined bits of walls in wondrous profusion, and testify to its probably having been the most important central city of the district in which so many of our Lord's mighty works took place. Very near is Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. My horse, which had come round the lake, met me there, and amid heavy rain we parted, they to return to Tiberias and I towards Safed, which I reached before evening and found shelter in the house of a Greek Syrian family.

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Safed is thought to be the city which elicited our Lord's remark: 'A city which is set on a hill cannot be hid.' Its ascents and descents are tortuous and difficult for animals, but it has some fine houses and contains 1,500 Jews. . . . Mr. and Mrs. Friedman, of the Church of England Jews Society, found me out immediately on my arrival; but I was already housed and did not think it well to migrate in the heavy rain. They were, however, most kindly intentioned. It was a surprise to find an English clergyman in such a place, though a Russian Jew by birth. I had to talk for two or three hours to them and the people of the house, and then thankfully took refuge in a snug little bedroom with a picture of the Virgin over the pillow, to ensure protection I suppose. I started next morning, amid rain again and very threatening clouds, and fairly drenched we were, more than once, before a steadily persevering march over mountains and defiles ended at last not where we hoped, at Tibnin, a large fortress, but at an Arab hamlet of rather dismal hovels (called Baithon), where, after praying in vain for some time for a night's lodging, we were compassionately received at last in a place, half-stable, half-cottage, where, after making myself a cup of tea, I was glad to try to get some rest on the floor amidst a medley group of men, women, children, camels, heifers, horses and mules, dogs and cats, and fowls roosting above in the ceiling beams. I tried, not with much success, to get the good people to listen to some Arabic readings out of the Gospels. The state of roads reminded me of some of my last year's experiences between Bagdad and Mosul, and again between Diarbekir and Oorfa. Here it was worse, because I have no dragoman or companion, and have to be my own cook as best I can.

Saturday began again in mists and showers most unpromisingly, but we got off at 10; left Tibnin, a magnificent hill fortress looking proudly down on vast mountain ranges, at II or so: and then traversed, amid most exhausting storms, a defile more than four hours in length, and seeming interminable, down some boulder-strewn paths or rock-hewn cavities such as made our steeds stand here and there in utter despondency to think what was next to be the move to avoid a checkmate. It was to be only five hours to Tyre according to Baedeker, but when nightfall approached we found Tyre was still three hours ahead, and we took refuge at a Greek Catholic priest's house, who gave me up considerately part of his own room (sitting and sleeping both), and his wife, a good, simple hardworking body, lit fires and cooked some eggs and a fowl, and turned into soup at my dictation some Liebig's paste Mrs. Blyth gave me, so we fared tolerably; only a quarter of the parish gathered in the one room to see us eat our supper. Some fairly profitable conversation followed, and glad I was to spread my bed on the floor again and seek quiet. Alas! I had to finish the three hours on