The "conversations," also, are equally genuine-are, in fact, a part of the tours-held in the open country, on horseback, or beneath the pilgrim's tent. Each reader is at liberty to regard himself as the compagnon de voyage; but, in the mind of the author, his fellow-traveler is not a mythical abstraction, whose office is merely to introduce what needs to be introduced, but a true and loving brother, who thus announces his arrival and the object of his visit to the Holy Land: "Ras Beirut, January 20th, 1857. "MY DEAR W- I this morning woke to find life's long dream a beautiful reality. For twenty years and more, as you well know, a visit to Palestine has been the unattained object of my fondest aspirations; and now here am I safely landed on her sacred shore, in perfect health, and ready to prosecute our pilgrimage with cheerful courage and high hope. The compact of our boyhood is to be realized, and I summon you to fulfill your part of it. This land of the Bible must become familiar to me as childhood's home. There are lessons in every thing around me, I feel quite sure, and teachers on every side, did I but know their language. You are to be my dragoman to interpret this unknown tongue of the Holy Land. Such, you remember, is our compact. "I am told that the necessary preparation for our travels can only be made in this city. Come on, therefore, without delay, and let us gather together whatever will contribute to our comfort, safety, and success. This will reach you by messenger express. The answer, I hope, will be yourself." This summons was neither unexpected nor reluctantly obeyed; and a few hours' ride along the shore brought the author from Sidon to Beirût, where the long-separated met in the hospitable mansion of a mutual friend. And now, kind reader, I trust that, like ourselves, you are eager to commence this tour of the Holy Land. But we must begin our preparations for it with "the garment of patience." Horses, and mules, and tents, and canteens, and beds, cooking apparatus and servants to use it, with many other things too trifling to be mentioned, yet too necessary to be omitted, can not be secured in a day. Meanwhile we may employ some of the hours of unavoidable delay in excursions to sites and scenes in and around our beautiful city. Indeed, we invite you to join us in such a ramble at once through these charming suburbs. xvi The "conver of the autho Land: "MY DEAR beautiful reality. Palestine has b now here am I ready to prosect The compact of your part of it. hood's home. T and teachers on my dragoman to you remember, i "I am told th in this city. Cc whatever will co reach you by me This sumr obeyed; and in the hospit our preparat ing apparatus ted, can not ploy some of to sites and deed, we inv through these THE LAND AND THE BOOK. I. BEIRUT. January 24th, 1857. OUR first walk in the Land of Promise! To me a land of promises more numerous and not less interesting than those given to the Father of the Faithful, when the Lord said, Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.1 It is given to me also, and I mean to make it mine from Dan to Beersheba before I leave it. Doubtless; and so every young enthusiast in trade means to make his fortune. But do you expect to gain such an inheritance as this in a few months? Abraham himself never set foot on one tenth of this territory, and Moses only got a bird's-eye view of it—not a bad one, though, if the day was as intensely clear as ours is. One seems to look quite to the bottom of heaven's profoundest azure, "where the everlasting stars abide;" and how sharply defined is every rock and ravine, and tree and house on lofty Lebanon. That virgin snow on its summit is thirty miles off, and yet you could almost read your own name there, if written with a bold hand on its calm, cold brow. Through such utter transparency did the Lord show unto Moses, from the top of Mount Abarim, all the land of Gilead unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah unto the utmost sea, and the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm-trees, unto Zoar.2 Nor need there have 1 Gen. xiii. 17. 2 Deut. xxxiv. 1-3. been any miracle in the matter. Though a hundred and twenty years old, his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. And I can guide you to many a Pisgah on Lebanon and Hermon from whence the view is far more extensive. It was through such an atmosphere as this, I suppose, that the old Phoenicians first saw Cyprus, and called it Chittim, a name afterward applied by Hebrew poets and prophets to the islands of the Mediterranean in general. I have heard it denied, both in and out of Palestine, that Cyprus could be seen from Lebanon, but from many a standpoint up yonder I have often beheld that favorite isle of the Paphian Venus glowing in the golden light of our summer evenings. More distinctly still is Lebanon visible from Cyprus. There is a splendid view of it from the mountain of the Cross, a few miles back of Larnica; and many years ago, when traveling through the island, I climbed, with infinite toil, the northern range of mountains to a giddy pinnacle not far from the ruined but romantic castle of Bûffavento, and from it the higher half of Lebanon looked like a huge snow-bank drifted up against the sky. Beneath my feet rolled the sparkling seas of Cilicia and Pamphylia, over which Paul sailed on his way to Rome, while far beyond, the glaciers of Taurus flashed back the setting sun. Through such an atmosphere, objects are visible to a distance quite incredible to the inexperienced. You will find yourself deceived in this matter a hundred times before you have traveled a week in Syria. And now we are abroad, shall we ramble on ala bab Allâh (toward God's gate), as our Arabs say when they neither know nor care where they are going? Just my case at present. Where all is new, and every prospect pleases, it matters little what path we take, and, for the moment, I am thinking of what is not seen rather than what is. Looking for an omnibus, perhaps, or expecting the cars to overtake us? Not just that. I know that such things are not yet ! Deut. xxxiv. 7. |