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crater, and yet I noticed no indication of volcanic agency in that immediate vicinity.

This Fureîdîs was called Frank Mountain by the Crusaders, and must have been a strong fortification during all the ages in which isolated tells afforded the natural platform for castles. There is none of equal height and size in Palestine. Leaving it on the right, we had Bethlehem in full view about three miles westward, and the setting sun threw a mild and subdued light over the plains where the shepherds were keeping watch. Somehow or other we made but slow progress, and night came upon us bewildered in a labyrinth of wadies, while there were yet two long hours to Mar Saba, whither the muleteers had preceded us, and which we had to reach, or otherwise sleep out in the wilderness supperless, and at the mercy of our villainous guides. On we marched, up and down, and down and up, on sharp ridges, in deep wadies, and over slippery rocks, or through stiff mud, but finally, without accident or injury of any kind, we dismounted at the entrance of the convent. I shall never forget that evening ride. Our imaginations had been held wide awake hour after hour by bad roads, doubtful guides, and the dismal notes of owls and jackals. The moon, rising over the brown hills of Moab, flashed and trembled on the Dead Sea, giving just light enough to make the crags appear more stern, and the chasms more horrible. At the convent, two towers, one on either brow of the gorge, loomed up through the misty moonbeams, like grim old giants, to guard the access. We entered through a low iron door, went down, turned round through a second door, then down again by winding stairs, across queer courts, and along dark passages, until we reached at length our rooms, hanging between cliffs that towered to the stars, or seemed to, and yawning gulfs which darkness made bottomless and dreadful. I was struck dumb with astonishment. It was a transition sudden and unexpected, from the wild mountain to the yet wilder, more vague and mysterious scenes of Oriental enchantment. Lights gleamed out fitfully from hanging rocks and doubtful caverns. Winding stairs, with balus

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MAR SABA-VALLEY OF URTAS.

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trade and iron rail, ran right up the perpendicular cliffs into rock chambers, where the solitary monk was drowsily muttering his midnight prayers. It was long after that hour before sleep visited my eyes, and then my dreams were of Arabs, and frightful chasms, and enchanted castles.

Daylight next morning stripped off much of the wild and fearful from the midnight view through the pale beams of the waning moon, but even then Mar Saba is the strangest convent that I have ever seen. We, of course, visited the curiosities of the place: St. Saba's sepulchre, beneath an octagon mausoleum; the numerous chapels, covered with pictures and Greek inscriptions; the really splendid church,. blazing with silver and gold; the vault, filled with fourteen thousand skulls of martyred monks! and I know not what besides, with which this convent-castle is crowded. No description had in the least prepared me for what I saw, and no pen-picture could do justice to the original. It must be seen, and every visitor will be well rewarded for his three hours' ride. The stupendous cliffs of the Kidron, full of caverns, now the home of bats and owls instead of monks and hermits, are not the least impressive of the many wonders that cluster around this strange retirement of Santa Saba.

Our present approach will be by the sober light of day, and must lack every element of romance, so we may as well interest ourselves with this fine valley of Urtas. This is believed to be the Etam of the ancient Hebrew kings, a name which rarely occurs in the Bible, and nowhere in such relation to other places as to indicate this locality, unless it be in 2d Chronicles xi. 6, where it is named along with Bethlehem and Tekoa. The truth is that its celebrity depends upon the fables of the rabbis more than the pages of sober history. The fountain near the village, however, must have always filled the valley below it with orchards and flourishing gardens; and it is not an unreasonable supposition that David, who so intensely longed for even a drink of water from his native Bethlehem, would have shown a similar partiality for this pretty valley below it, where he must

have often played while a child. Not unlikely he had purchased it before he died, and when Solomon came into possession, he farther adorned it with his pools and orchards; and in traversing this vale, I always love to reproduce in imagination the gorgeous scene when it was filled with fruits and flowers, and these many-shaped hills on either side, and on all sides, were terraced to their tops, and dotted every where with country villas, amid olive-groves, fig-orchards, and clustering vines. Thus it certainly was through many long ages of peace and prosperity, and it is my belief that thus it will be once more, in that happy day "when the Lord shall bring again Zion."

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