cumstances do not stand upon etiquette, we called at their tent, and found the Rev. Dr. Mill and Col. Hezata, who in returning from India by way of Egypt, had thus taken the route through Palestine. Our present visit was a short one; but we afterwards had the pleasure of meeting them again at Jerusalem and Beirût; and also of making in company with them the voyage from Beirût to Alexandria and Smyrna.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

NOTE XXIX. Page 368.

SUMMEIL, ST. SAMUEL. Our visit to Summeil enables me to correct an error of more than three centuries' standing. Tucher of Nürnberg in A. D. 1479, on his journey from Bethlehem by way of Dhikhrin to Gaza (see Text p. 362), passed by this place; and confounding the name Summeil with Samuel, calls it the Castle of St. Samuel. He says it then paid a rent of two thousand ducats yearly to a hospital in St. Abraham or Hebron; from which twelve hundred loaves of bread and other articles of food, were daily distributed to the poor. See Reissb. p. 678. Tucher's work was first published in Germany in A. D. 1482.-The next year, in A D. 1483, Breydenbach and Felix Fabri travelled from. Hebron to Gaza, apparently by way of Beit Jibrin; at least they lodged the first night at the village of Sukkariyeh not far distant. Fabri in describing St. Abraham (Hebron), speaks of the same hospital as situated near the great mosk; and tells the same story of the twelve hundred loaves of bread, and the two thousand ducats rent from a castle of St. Samuel; which he supposed to be not far off, though he did not see it. The very same account of a distribution of bread from the great mosk, or an establishment connected with it, is given. in Gumpenberg's Journal A. D. 1449 (Reissb. p. 445); and also in the Arabic History of Jerusalem and Hebron by Mejr ed-Din A. D. 1495; Fundgr. des Or. II. p. 377.

All this goes to confirm the statements of Tucher; and there is nothing improbable in the account, that the mosk or hospital at Hebron may have derived a part of its revenues from Summeil ; just as the great mosk at Jerusalem still receives rents from the villages of Taiyibeh and Râm-Allah. This is also implied in the name Summeil el-Khulil, which it still bears. But now comes Breydenbach, who made this journey with Fabri, in which they certainly did not take the route by Summeil, and relates that on

their first day's journey from Hebron, before they came to Sikkariyeh, they passed by a Castle of St. Samuel, near which was a small town called St. Abraham's Castle; here was a hospital which distributed bread, etc. Reissb. p. 186. This implies, that there was a second castle of St. Abraham distinct from Hebron, and a second castle of St. Samuel between Hebron and Sukkariyeh. But Fabri, who was in the same party, says not a word of all this; and the whole is obviously a mere figment, arising out of a gross misapprehension of Tucher's language, which the writer copies in order to supply his own deficiencies. It furnishes one instance of the higher value of Fabri's testimony in general, as compared with that of Breydenbach. Yet Breydenbach's account has been copied and credited by Büsching and others; and in consequence, a Castle of St. Abraham and another of St. Samuel figure on Berghaus' Map, at some distance west of Hebron. See Busching's Erdbeschr. Th. XI. i. p. 449. Bachiene Th. II. ii. p. 348.

THE "DESERT" NEAR GAZA. In Acts viii. 26, Philip is directed to go from Samaria "toward the South, unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert;" inì tìr odor τὴν καταβαίνουσαν ἀπὸ ̔Ιερουσαλὴμ εἰς Γάζαν· αὕτη ἐστιν ἔρημος. Here avr may refer either to odor (way) or to Gaza. The facts in the history of Gaza given in the text, render it improbable that the city is here meant ; although there is a possibility, that Luke might have written just after the destruction of Gaza about A. D. 65; and thus have been led from the novelty of the event to mention it. On this hypothesis, the words must belong to Luke, and not to the angel, as a mere parenthetic remark. If attributed to the angel, and understood in this sense, it is difficult to see what bearing they could have upon his instructions to Philip; since the latter was not to go to Gaza, but only upon the road leading to it; and this road was the same, whether Gaza was desolate or not.

More probable therefore is it, that the term "desert" is to be referred to the road on which Philip should find the eunuch; and was indeed meant as a description, to point out to him the parti cular road, where he should fall in with the latter. This was the more necessary, because there were several ways leading from Jerusalem to Gaza. The most frequented at the present day, although the longest, is the way by Ramleh. Anciently there appear to have been two more direct roads; one down the great

Wady es-Surâr by Beth-shemesh, and then passing near Tell esSâfieh; the other, through Wady el-Musurr to Betogabra or Eleutheropolis, and thence to Gaza through a more southern tract. Both these roads exist at the present day; and the latter now actually passes through the desert; that is, through a tract of country without villages, inhabited only by nomadic Arabs. This is more particularly described in the subsequent pages of the text.

If we may suppose the case to have been the same, or nearly so, when the book of Acts was written, the explanation becomes easy; for the chief difficulty has ever been, to show how this region, in itself so fertile, could be called "desert." That the district was at that time in like manner deserted, is not improbable. In the days of the Maccabees, the Idumeans had taken possession of Judea as far North as to Hebron, Adora, and Marissa, cities lying on or near the mountains; where they were subdued and compelled to embrace Judaism; 1 Macc. v. 65. Joseph. Antiq. XIII. 9. 1. XV. 7. 9. This serves to show, that the southern part of Judea was no longer occupied by the Jews themselves; nor is there any mention of cities or villages in the plain between Gaza and the mountains, later than the time of Nehemiah. It seems therefore probable, that even then the migratory hordes of the southern desert had spread themselves further to the North; and thus connected this tract, as at the present day, with their own "desert."

When Jerome says that in his time "the site of ancient Gaza presented only vestiges of foundations, and the city of that day stood in a different spot," this seems only an hypothesis of his own, in order to make out the fulfilment of prophecy; Zeph. ii. 4. Amos i. 7. Eusebius has nothing of the kind; and it is inconsistent with all other historical accounts. See Onomast. art. Gaza.

When we were at Tell el-Hasy, and saw the water standing along the bottom of the adjacent Wady, we could not but remark the coincidence of several circumstances with the account of the eunuch's baptism. This water is on the most direct route from Beit Jibrin to Gaza, on the most southern road from Jerusalem, and in the midst of the country now "desert," i. e. without villages or fixed habitations. The thought struck us, that this might not improbably be the place of water described. There is at present no other similar water on this road; and various circumstances the way to Gaza, the chariot, and the subsequent finding of Philip at AzoVOL. II.

81

tus, all go to show that the transaction took place in or near the plain.

NOTE XXXI. Page 396.

INSCRIPTIONS AT BEIT JIBRIN. The two following inscriptions in old Cufic, were copied by Mr. Smith in the cavern with a small fountain, N. E. of the ruined church of Santa Hanneh, near Beit Jibrin. Through the kindness of Professor Roediger of Halle, I am enabled to subjoin their probable form in modern Arabic, with a translation. It will be seen that they are the work of visitors, and afford no information respecting the caverns.

I.

اللحم ارسلته رلس هد

,God Ibn Suleiman testifies اللهم ابن [ان] سليمن يشهد

that there is no god but God.

انه لا اله الا الله

ELEUTHEROPOLIS, CEPERARIA. The Reviewer of Raumer's Palästina in the "Gelehrte Anzeigen" of Munich, 1836, No 242, col. 903, seq. advances the opinion, that the site of Eleutheropolis is to be fixed at Ceperaria, a place marked in the Peutinger Tables at eight Roman miles from Betogabra towards Jerusalem. This view he endeavours to support by an apparent coincidence of the