LUBBAN OR LEBONAH.

317 modern village or the ancient ruins from the masses of naked rock around it.

From the northern brow of the hill, and immediately above Lubbân, which lies close in at its base, there opened an extensive, varied, and noble view. To the south a fine pastoral valley stretched away up in the direction of Ain-Yebrud. To the north a rich and fertile plain, perfectly flat, and from one to two miles broad, appeared at our feet, bounded on the farther side by a lofty range of olive-clad hills. This plain, covered with various kinds of growing crop, and all of the brightest green, lay like a beautiful carpet spread out on the spacious floor of some gigantic hall, whose walls were the everlasting hills. A mile or two to the west of Lubbân this fine plain turned sharp round to the north, and disappeared behind a projecting mountain range.

The descent from the height that afforded us this view is so steep that it is only by a long succession of zig-zags it can be accomplished on horseback at all. The ruins of an extensive khan, and a copious fountain beside it, are the only objects of interest at Lubbân. Our mukharis had not arrived when we reached it, -a circumstance that disappointed us all the more that we were famishing with hunger, and had no chance of getting anything to eat till they should make their appearance. It was therefore a great relief to us all, when, about half an hour after our arrival, we had the satisfaction of descrying Ahmed's tall figure rounding the shoulder of the hill above us, and close behind him Halil and Hassan with the baggage train. At what point they deviated from the road by which we had come, we never exactly ascertained; but evidently they had fallen into it again. Scarcely had they reached the khan, behind whose eastern wall we were hiding ourselves from the fiery sun, when Gaetano was deep in the panniers which formed his especial care, drawing forth and arranging the materials of our afternoon repast.

By four P.M. we were again in the saddle, having still a long ride before us. Now, for the first time since leaving Jerusalem,

we had something deserving the name of a road. It was a mere horse track, to be sure, but running as it did along the level plain, it was smooth and easy. Beyond the projecting height already noticed, the plain runs nearly due north, narrowing as it proceeds onwards among the hills. To the left of our route the village of Sawieh was pointed out far up the hill side. About an hour and a half beyond Lubbân we came to a point where the plain terminates, on the edge of a narrow wady that runs away westwards, in the direction of the Mediterranean. The water-course which, in the rainy season, drains this district of the country, finds its way through the wady now alluded to into the Aujeh-a river that falls into the sea a few miles north of Jaffa. Two villages were now in sight. Kubalân, at the distance of two or three miles up the wady eastwards, and nearer at hand, Yetma, on the slope of the hill beyond it. There was something very sweet and home-like in the scenery of this sequestered valley. Its grassy knolls and clumps of trees, and flocks of sheep and goats browsing in its green hollows, as well as the whole character of the hills around it, forcibly reminded us of some of our own quiet Highland glens. Right across this little valley, our path led us away up the steep face of a range of hills beyond it, from the summit of which we looked down upon the extensive plain of El-Mukhna. The course of this plain is from south to north, and bounded, as usual, on either side by a wall of hills. When it opened upon our view, as we rounded the top of the hill, from the base of which it stretches away northwards, the shadows of evening were already falling across it from the chain of hills on its western side; while the bare and rocky range that shuts it in on the east, was all glowing with the rich warm hues of the setting sun. The plain itself, waving from side to side with corn crops, and dotted here and there with little groups of olive-trees, and without a single fence or visible division of any kind to break its even surface, was here and there still streaked by bright sunbeams shooting across it through the openings in the western wall of hills. Running

our eyes along that western line of hills, there were two summits that rose pre-eminently above all the rest. The one was Mount Gerizim, the other Mount Ebal; and between them lay the narrow entrance into the valley of Shechem, where our day's journey was to terminate. The mouth of that valley was, at least, seven miles from where we stood. There was no time, therefore, to indulge in sentimental musings. Twilight is soon over in Palestine; and already it was all but certain that the darkness would overtake us before we could reach Nablouse. Down the hill face accordingly we rode, as fast as the rough and rocky nature of the ground permitted, and then away northwards along the western side of the plain. As we passed, some miles farther on, the village of Hawara, picturesquely planted on the steep hill face, several hundred feet above the level of the plain, the Syrian peasants were gathering in their flocks towards it for the night; each with his long brass-mounted gun over his shoulder, and a pistol or other weapon in his belt. There was just as much light lingering on the side of Gerizim by the time we approached the broad base of that noble hill, as to let us see that its fertile and verdant slopes were clothed, half-way to its summit, with corn; and thereby reminding us that Gerizim was the hill of blessing. The bare rocky steeps of Ebal beyond it, clothed in deeper shadows, we could now but dimly discern.

Half an hour later and night had fallen. With these lofty hills around us, and the sky clouded besides, the darkness was soon so great that we could with difficulty trace our path. One of our party, much fatigued with the long day's journey, had gradually fallen considerably into the rear, and as my wife and I had remained behind to bear him company, we had to find out the latter part of the way for ourselves. After rounding the eastern base of Gerizim the path slants away up along its northern side. It might have been easy enough riding in day-light, but is was rough work in the dark. Sometimes groping along the face of a steep declivity, sometimes scrambling across the dry bed of a rugged water-course, we at length gained the higher

level of the valley of Shechem, at the mouth of which we found our friends waiting till we should rejoin them. With Ahmed leading the way in front, we marched slowly on, through noble olive groves, towards Nablouse, the lights of which we now saw in the distance glimmering through the noble woods by which it is embowered. The town lies on the left, or south side of the valley, close in at the foot of Gerizim. Our camping ground was on an elevated plateau outside of the town and beyond it, surrounded with venerable olive-trees, and looking down on the luxuriant gardens of Nablouse, and on the fine stream by which they are watered. Within a quarter of an hour after we reached it our tents were all pitched, and a blazing fire, kindled by Gaetano, was throwing its ruddy glare on the gnarled stems of the old trees that stood sentry round us. Our portable table, a long and very light board, about two feet in breadth, pierced with a hole at each corner for the insertion of the moveable feet, was speedily laid out in one of the tents. Squatting around it, in Oriental fashion, on cloaks and railway-wrappers, and making the best of such cheer as Gaetano's not very perfect appliances, and not very distinguished cookery, enabled him to set before us, we forgot all our fatigues talking over the scenes and incidents of so deeply interesting a day. An hour later and we were all buried in sleep.

On the following morning, Sabbath the 3d of May, our first visitor was a young Syrian, a convert to Protestantism from the Greek Church, and teacher, under the auspices of Bishop Gobat, of a mission school in Nablouse. Ever since the unhappy occurrence which took place about eighteen months before, when by some unlucky accident, and in a moment of panic, occasioned by an attack of the fanatic Moslems, the Rev. Mr. Lyde, then in charge of the mission, shot one of the rioters, the mission has been all but entirely broken up. The little school taught by our young visitor is all that now remains of it. The Protestant community in the place amounts in all to only thirty persons-men, women, and children. The teacher both read