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TRAVELS IN PALESTINE.

THE HE next objects of Mr. Buckingham's research were the cisterns of Solomon,and Ain Kareem, the birthplace of John the Baptist. From this latter place he proceeded to Jerusalem, where, having arrived five minutes after sunset, he was compelled to wait before the gates of the city, until a formal application had heen made to the governor to admit him. The first morning after his arrival, he visited the Latin Convent, the house of Uriah, the pool of Bathsheba, and the palace of David; in the street beyond which was shown the place said to be that at which Christ appeared to Mary Magdalen and the other Mary, after his resurrection, when he cried to them "All hail!" and they held him by the feet and worshipped him.

On January 26th, 1816, Mr. Buckingham, accompanied by Mr. Bankes, investigated the tomb of Christ.

"Our stay in the sepulchre itself," says he, "was very short: the smallness of the aperture of entrance; the confined space within, hung round with crimson damask, and ornamented with silver lamps and paintings; the hurry and bustle occasioned by the worshippers searching for their shoes left at the door, as every one went in barefoot; the struggles to be the first to get near enough to kiss the marble, 2Y ATHENEUM VOL. 19.

BY J. S. BUCKINGHAM, ESQ. and sometimes the forcibly pulling off the turbans of those who might have forgotten to uncover their heads, presented altogether a scene of such confusion, that, added to the risk of suffocation in so impure an atmosphere, it drove us out rapidly to make room for others."

The next day being the Sabbath of the Jews, the travellers went early in the morning to attend the service of the Jewish Synagogue.

"Arriving at the spot, which was in a low, obscure street, near the centre of the town, we descended by a flight of steps into a grotto. On getting down into this, we found it to be a large suite of subterranean rooms, lighted by small windows from above, around the sides, and near the roof.

"The whole place was divided into seven or eight smaller rooms, in the centre of each was raised a square enclosure, open above at the sides; and here stood the priest who read the service. The female worshippers were above, looking down on the congregation through a skreen of lattice-work. The men were below, all seated on benches, and every one had a white serge cloth, striped with blue at the ends, thrown over his head; at the front corners of this cloth were two long cords, and around two of the edges of it were fringes with threads.

"After some time passed in reading and responses, we went into the central rooms, which were both of them longer than the outer ones; and at the end of these were curtains for the veil of the temple. In the principal room this veil was of purple cloth worked with gold; and on its centre were the two tables of the law in Hebrew, nearly in the same form as we have them in English in our churches.

"The priest who officiated had, during this last week, arrived here from Amsterdam. The book from which he read rested on a piece of crimson velvet, worked with Hebrew letters of gold; after an apparent weeping on the part of the people, who covered their faces with the white head-cloth, and moved to and fro as if distressed for the loss of something, a man walked round the synagogue crying with a loud voice, and changing the first word only at every subsequent exclamation. This we learnt was the sum offered for the sight of the Tozat, or Scriptures. Advances were then made by individuals of the audience, and repeated by the crier, until either a sufficient or some specified sum was raised.

"The priest then made a loud shout, and all the people joined; when some of the elders drew aside the veil of the temple, and opening a recess like that of a sanctum sanctorum, took from thence a cabinet, highly ornamented with silver. In this were two rolls containing the book of the law on parchment, rolled round a small pillar in the centre, which, on being turned, exposed the writing on the roll successively to view. On the top of this roll was fixed two silver censers with small bells, and it was carried round the assembly, when each of the congregation touched the writing with the cords at the front corners of his head-cloth, after placing these cords to his lips, then across his eyes. The cabinet was followed by a boy bearing four silver censers with bells on a stand, and after every one had touched it, it was placed on the altar, in the central sanctuary, before the priest.

"We had been suffered to go through every part of the synagogue during the

service, which consisted chiefly in reading, and had to press through narrow ranks of the worshippers. We were at length accosted in Italian by an old Rabbi, who called himself Mohallim Zachereas, and told us that he was the banker of the governor, and the chief of the Jews here. He said that he had left Leghorn at the age of 15, against the wish of his friends, to end his days in Jerusalem, and that he had remained here ever since, being now nearly 60 years of age; from him we learned the chief particulars of the worship already described, and he told us that the service was the same in all the separate divisions of the synagogue.'

Having closed his excursions to the holy places round Jerusalem, Mr. Buckingham presents us with a retrospective view of the city, which is il lustrated by a very well executed plan, having been preceded by an excellent map of ancient Jerusalem and its divisions.

From the estimate given by Mr. Buckingham it would appear that the fixed residents of the holy city, one half of whom are Mohammedans, are about eight thousand; but that the continual influx of strangers from all countries, augments the population from ten to fifteen thousand, according to the season of the year. From Christmas to Easter is the period in which Jerusalem is most frequented. Very little trade is carried on, and but few manutures, religion being almost the only business which brings men of opposite quarters together here; there is much less bustle than would be produced in a trading town, by a smaller number of inhabitants. The military force kept up here is comparatively small, consisting only of about 1000 soldiers, including horse and foot.

In this part of the work Mr. Buckingham has introduced some very interesting discussions on the hill of Sion; the received opinion that the cemeteries of the ancients were universally excluded from the precincts of their cities, &c.; in which, to say nothing of his apparently minute acquaintance with the Scriptures, he displays con

siderable learning and ingenuity. We quote his observations on the disputed site of Calvary :—

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"The place called Golgotha, and translated the place of a skull,' has been, by all writers, supposed to have been without the precincts of the ancient Jerusalem; but there is no positive authority that I am aware of for such a position. It has been thought, first, that, as a place of execution, it would be held defiling; and next, as a place of burial, that it could not have been included within the walls. We are at least assured that the tomb in which Jesus was laid was near to the place of his crucifixion: Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein yet was never man laid, there laid they Jesus therefore, because of the Jews preparation-day, for the sepulchre was NIGH AT HAND.' It is fair to presume, that a respectable Jew, like Joseph of Arimathea, would hardly have a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre newly hewn in the rock, in a place that was defiled by being one of common execution; and I think the very circumstance of these being there, is sufficient to induce a belief, that it was NOT a place commonly devoted to so ignominious a purpose. All the gospels represent Jesus as being hurried away by the multitude, who seized indiscriminately upon one of the crowd to bear his cross, " And when they were come to a place called Calvary, or Golgotha, there they crucified him between two thieves.' None of them, however, speak of it either as being a place of public execution, but leave one to infer, that it was an unoccupied place, just pitched on for the purpose as they passed.

"Some persons whose ideas of Calvary had led them to expect a hill as large as the Mount of Olives, or Mount Sion, have been disappointed at finding the rock shown for it to be so low and small. But on what authority is it called a Mount? and of which different sizes and elevations is that term affixed? The present is a rock, the summit of which is ascended to by a steep flight of eighteen or twenty

steps, from the common level of the church, which is equal with that of the street without; and beside this you descend from the level of the church by thirty steps into the chapel of St. Helena, and by eleven more steps to the place where it was supposed that the Cross, the Crown of Thorns, and the Head of the Spear were found, after laying buried in this place upwards of 300 years."

On the 28th, their preparations for the prosecution of their journey being completed, Mr. Buckingham, accompanied by Mr. Bankes, his Albanian interpreter, and two Arab guides, left Jerusalem for Jericho. For the convenience of travelling, they arrayed themselves in the costume of the country, Mr. Buckingham as a Syrian Arab, and Mr. Bankes as a Turkish soldier. The guides wore their own garb of Bedouins of the desert. As they were unable to hire animals to carry their baggage, each person took charge of whatever portion belonged to himself. They took with them bread, dates, tobacco, and coffee, and a supply of corn for their horses, with a leathern bottle of water suspended from each saddle.

The road from Jerusalem to the Jordan, abounding as it does in the wildest scenery of nature, ravines, cliffs and precipices mingling in awful and wonderful confusion, is the most dangerous about Palestine. "The very aspect of the scenery," says Mr. B. "is sufficient, on the one hand, to tempt to robbery and murder, and, on the other, to occasion a dread of it in those who pass that way." After a walk of about six hours, they arrived at Jericho ; but so entirely abandoned was this once important city, that there was not a tree or shrub observed upon its site. The ruins appeared to cover near a square mile, but were too indistinct to enable the travellers to form any plan of them. Passing on about four miles in an easterly direction, they came to the village of Riblah, on the banks of the Jordan. They saw nothing of importance in this place. The only objects pointed out to them were a modern square tower of Mohammedan work, which they pretend was the house of

Zaccheus, and an old tree, up which he is said to have climbed, in order to obtain a sight of Jesus as he passed.

The next day the travellers passed the Jordan.

"The stream (says Mr. B.) appeared to us to be little more than twentyfive yards in breadth, and was so shallow in this part as to be easily fordable by our horses. The banks were thickly lined with tall rushes, oleanders, and a few willows; the stream was exceedingly rapid; the water tolerably clear, from its flowing over a bed of pebbles; and, as we drank of the stream while our horses were watering, we found it pure and sweet to the taste.

"From the distance which we had come from Jericho northward, it seemed probable that we had crossed the river pretty nearly at the same ford as that which was passed over by the Israelites on their first entering the pro

mised land.

"Ascending on the east side of the Jordan, we met large flocks of camels, mostly of a whitish colour, and all of them young and never yet burthened, as our guides assured us, though the whole number of those we saw could not have fallen short of a thousand. These were being driven down to the Jordan to drink, chiefly under the care of young men and damsels. Among them many of the young ones were clothed around their bodies with coverings of hair teat-cloth, while the elder females had their udders bound up in bags, tied by cords crossing over the loins; and the males walked with two of the legs tied."

After travelling onward in a northeasterly direction, and passing the night in the camp of a tribe of friendly Bedouins, they arrived at the village of Boorza, which appeared to contain from forty to fifty dwellings of stone. This place is supposed to have been the Bozer mentioned in the Sacred Writings. On their journey from hence, they were joined by a troop of Bedouins, in whose camp they spent the night. Early the next morning they proceeded through a rich and beautiful country, to the ruins of Gerash, (the Geraza of the ancients,) of which Mr. Buckingham has given a

very full and copious account. Their situation during their sojourn here was particularly dangerous, owing to the jealous suspicion of the scattered inhabitants, who seem to have been impressed with an idea that the treasures supposed to have been buried beneath the ruins of Jerash were the objects of the travellers' researches. The following description of this city, viewed from a steep hill in the vicinity, is given by Mr. Buckingham:

"The city, standing itself upon a rising ground, seemed, from this point of view, to be seated in the hollow of a grand and deep valley, encircled on all sides by lofty mountains, now covered with verdure, and having part of its own plain below in actual cultivation. Near, on the summit of the southern hill which bounded the view in that quarter, stood the modern village of Aioode, having a central tower and walls, and forming the retreat of the husbandmen, who till the grounds in the valley beneath. The circular colonnade, the avenues of Corinthian pillars forming the principal street, the southern gate of entrance, the naumachia, and the triumphal arch beyond it, the theatres, the temples, the aqueducts, the baths, and all the assemblage of noble buildings which presented their vestiges to the view, seemed to indicate a city built only for luxury, for splendour, and for pleasure; although it was a mere colonial town in a foreign province, distant from the capital of the great empire to which it belonged, and scarcely known in sacred or profane history. Wishing to take a more accurate survey of the ancient Geraza than they had hitherto been enabled to accomplish, the two travellers returned privately to that city for the purpose, thus avoiding the interruptions to which they would have been liable from the suspicious character of the neighbouring people.

"The city occupied nearly a square of somewhat less than two English miles in circumference, and the greatest length, from the ruined arched building on the south of the first entrance to the small temple on the north side of the opposite one, is about 50 10 feet, as measured by paces, or nearly

an English mile. The general direction of this square is, with its sides, nearly towards the four cardinal points; but no one of these sides are perfect, probably from the inequality of the ground along which they run.

"The city stood on the facing slopes of two opposite hills, with a narrow but not deep valley between them, through which ran a clear stream of water springing from fountains near the centre of the town.

"The eastern hill, though rather more extensive in its surface than the western one, rises with a steeper slope, and is consequently not so well fitted for building on. We found it covered with shapeless heaps of rubbish, evidently the wreck of houses; but as neither columns nor other vestiges of ornamental buildings were to be seen among these, we concluded that this portion of the city was chiefly inhabited by the lower orders of the people.

"The whole surface of the western is covered with temples, theatres, colonnades, and ornamental architecture, and was, no doubt, occupied by the more dignified and noble of the citizens. The general plan of the whole was evidently the work of one founder, and must have been sketched out before the Roman city, as we now see it in ruins, began to be built.

"The main street is intersected by two other streets which cross it at rightangles and extend through the whole breadth of the western portion of the city, the point of intersection in each being ornamented with a public square. From each of these intersections to their respectively nearest gate, the order of architecture that prevailed was Ionic; but in the central place between these intersections, and including a length equal to half that of the whole city, the predominant order was Corinthian.

"In the centre, or nearly so, of the central space, was a noble palace, probably the residence of the governor, with a beautiful Corinthian temple in front, and another more ruined one behind in right-lines with it, and the semicircular recess of a still more highlyfinished temple beside it.

"Just within the southern gate of entrance was a peripteral temple, a circular colonnade, and a theatre; and just within the northern gate of entrance was also a theatre, a temple, and a military guard-house. Both the principal streets extending the whole length of the city, and those which crossed it through its whole breadth, were lined by avenues of columns, extending, in one unbroken range on each side, and ascended to by steps."

(European Magazine.)

THE DEVILS OF LOUDUN.

IN the beginning of the sixteenth century, a bloody tragedy was played in the small town of Loudun, in France, to contemplate which at this day, makes men blush to be of the same species with the actors in it.

Urbain Grandier was the curate of St. Pierre du Marche in this town; he had been educated at the College of Jesuits at Bourdeaux, and their influence had procured him this benefice. He was so unfortunate as to draw upon himself the envy of several of the Churchmen of the neighbourhood, and the ill will of some of the principal persons of the town. His talents and good fortune were the cause of the first,

and the second was produced by his devotion to the fair sex, and a notorious turn for gallantry; habits it must be confessed neither honourable to, nor consistent with the sacerdotal character, but which would have been more justly punished by milder inflictions, than the cruel tortures by which he was deprived of existence.

He was of a tall and handsome person, which, with a vanity from which even priests are not usually exempt, he was fond of displaying to the best advantage; for this purpose he always wore his clerical habit in the street. He possessed a strong mind, and an acute genius, his eloquence was of a

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