PREFACE TO THIS EDITION.

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HE work of Dr. Thomson, which the present edition is designed to make more generally known to British readers, carries us over a part of Southern Syria and over Palestine, but in a direction opposite to that pursued by most travellers. Palestine is commonly entered from the south; and Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem are among the first places visited by tourists. Dr. Thomson enters it from the north, and the places which other travellers usually visit first are kept by him to the end. In the first part of the following work the scene is laid at the foot of Lebanon, along the coast of PHOENICIA, which, though included in the land promised to Abraham, was not, in point of fact, possessed by the Jews. From Tyre we are conducted, in the pleasant pages of Dr. Thomson, across the NORTHERN BOUNDARY OF PALESTINE; and after gazing on the snowcapped Hermon, visiting the sites of Dan, and Cæsarea Philippi, and the sources of the Jordan, we pass through UPPER GALILEE, and return to the sea at the BAY OF ACRE. There we spend some time in the survey of a neighbourhood memorable in all history, ancient and modern. Again we strike eastwards, and cross to the LAKE OF GALILEE, walking right round the shores which were so familiar to Jesus. Leaving them, we again turn westwards, till we reach the scene of his childhood, NAZARETH. From Nazareth we strike into the famous plain of ESDRAELON, survey the heights of Tabor, Hermon, and Gilboa, visit Endor and Shunem, and other places famed in Old Testament history; and crossing the Kishon and the ridge of Carmel, come again on the sea at the ruins of CESAREA PALESTINA.