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spent in the olive grove on the way, we had been in the saddle since six in the morning. Weary, however, and hungry as we were, we yielded to the counsel of our conductor, and instead of making for the Jaffa gate, we turned off at the westernmost angle of the city wall, and rode along that side of it which fronts the north-west. About half-way along this face of the wall, we passed the Damascus gate. From this point the adjacent country is well wooded, and assumes altogether a greatly more pleasing aspect. Some of the trees in this neighbourhood are very fine-one, in particular, near the Damascus gate, a noble terebinth, stately and umbrageous, with a foliage of most brilliant green, attracted much admiration. All along this side of the city, the lofty wall is built on the solid rock, which seems to have been cut down artificially for many feet below the basement of the wall. The deep hollow between the wall and the opposite bank, along which our road lay, had all the appearance of a regular fosse, dug for the purpose of strengthening the fortifications of the city.

At the north-eastern angle of the city, the wall turns sharp round, and runs nearly due south from this point to the extremity of Mount Moriah. Skirting this eastern wall, we pursued our way, having the Valley of Jehoshaphat, or of the Upper Kedron, as this part of the valley is called, on our left hand, and the city close to us on the right. In this line we proceeded as far as to the gate of Stephen, otherwise called the gate of Mary, or the gate of the Tribes, which is about mid-way along the eastern wall. This gate is nearly straight across the city, at its broadest part, from the gate of Jaffa: so that, to reach this point, we had ridden round one half of Jerusalem. Here we were right in front of our destination-the Mount of Olives. To get there we had first to descend by a steep zig-zag path to the dry bed of the Kedron in the bottom of the valley, and passing there the so-called tomb of the Virgin Mary on the left hand, and the wall of the Garden of Gethsemane on the right, to mount right up the face of the hill. The ascent is

rapid, and it required no inconsiderable urgency to induce our tired horses to face it.

As for ourselves, the riders, we were by this time in by no means the best case for either entering into, or being suitably and adequately affected by, the many solemn and tender associations of this remarkable locality. We were now in the very track of King David, when the unnatural rebellion of Absalom, his son, had compelled him to flee from the city, and when "he went up by the ascent of Mount Olivet, and wept as he went up, and had his head covered, and he went barefoot: and all the people that was with him covered every man his head, and they went up, weeping as they went up" (2 Sam. xv. 30). More touching still, we were on the very path by which, again and again, our Lord was wont towards evening to take his way to his favourite resort at Bethany, after crying all day long in the temple and in the city, to a gainsaying and disobedient people.

Near the very summit of the hill there is a wretched little village, and beyond it, on the very top a mosque built on the site of the Church of the Ascension. It had been our intention to pitch our tents somewhere on this elevated ground, and to seek no other or better shelter for the night than they might afford. The state of the weather now led us to adopt a different course. Though the bluish haze we had seen gathering on the horizon in the morning had gradually so increased, and so covered the whole face of the sky as somewhat to lessen the glare of the sun's rays, it did nothing during the day to cool the air; on the contrary, it seemed only to make the heat more exhausting and oppressive. The atmosphere was not still; on the contrary, the wind blew at times with considerable force; but the air was hot and stifling, as if it came from the mouth of a furnace. It was now sunset, and on the height of Olivet the wind had risen to almost a gale, and it threatened, moreover, to rain. In so exposed a position our tents were all but certain to be blown down. The gates of the city being by this time. closed for the night, it was no longer possible to get within its

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walls. As the only alternative, we resolved, after a brief consultation, to take refuge in the house of the keeper of the mosque. Riding up to the door, accordingly, we made known our wishes, when straightway there appeared an old man with a long beard, and a green turban, significant of his sacred function as having the charge of a holy place, who seemed quite willing to grant us, on the usual terms everywhere perfectly well understood, the accommodation we sought. Aged and asthmatic as he was, he began immediately to bustle about among the members of his household to have the preparations needful for our reception made. He had, as he assured us through our interpreter, two excellent apartments, which we found, as usual, upon the very top of the house, and fully exposed therefore to all the winds of heaven.

Mounting up by a series of outside stairs, from the open court beneath, we at length reached our resting-place for the night. Of the apartments assigned to us, the smaller one was set apart as the sleeping place of our two ladies, while the larger was converted into the supper-room of the whole party. The windows being mere wooden lattices, and these opening out on three sides. of this larger apartment, we soon discovered it to be a perfect temple of the winds, which howled through it amid the fast increasing darkness in such a fashion as not a little to remind us of some of our rougher nights at sea. We did our best, by nailing up rugs and railway wrappers against the lattices, to exclude the storm, though our success was not very complete.

The old man meanwhile provided us with some mats and divans, on which we gladly threw ourselves down. These we afterwards arranged on the naked stone floor, around the little low circular table, not more than a foot from the ground, which, after a weary hour's waiting, was at length set forth with our evening meal. We had thus an opportunity of realizing the ancient usage of reclining at the table. As for the dinner or supper-for to us it was both in one-it was a sorry affair, and did not tend to make us much in love with Syrian cookery. It

consisted of a pillau of greasy rice, with a few pieces of kid or goat, so tough that it was probably the latter, imbedded in the midst of it. This, and two or three pigeons seized and slain after our arrival, constituted our bill of fare. Hungry as we were, we made little hand of it, and but for some of our own good wholesome ship biscuit, with milk and a little wine, we should have been rather poorly off. It was not possible to avoid contrasting our somewhat comfortless position in this little gousty chamber with the good quarters we might have been enjoying in one of the hotels of the neighbouring city; and our somewhat romantic friend, whose glowing representations had brought us here, was plentifully scolded. There was now, however, no help for it, and we grew merry in our strange bivouac, over a state of things which made us greatly resemble a party of gipsies in a barn. After all, it was something to sup and sleep on the Mount of Olives, and something better still to send up, as we did, from this its loftiest summit, our evening song of praise; to read together out of His book solemn words which our Lord had spoken on this very hill; and to call upon His name so near the place from which, having finished His great work on earth, He ascended up to heaven, there to appear in the presence of God for us.