dingy streets, to the house of Simon the Tanner. On our way we noticed that Jaffa had put on a little finery in the way of ribbons and flags and wreaths in honor of General Grant's coming. There was an archway, and an inscription over it, "Welcome General Grant." There was a large tent, called the headquarters of tourist expeditions through the Holy Land. The proprietor was at the door in a state of enthusiasm, and gave us three cheers all by himself as we passed along, and wanted us to come in and drink champagne. He informed us that he was the most celebrated dragoman in the East, and that if we did not wish to fall into the hands of Bedouins, we should patronize him and not the concern over the way. So you see how this commercial age has carried its spirit of emulation into the Holy Land. We passed through narrow streets and down slippery stone steps over a zigzag route, until we came to a low stone house. This we were told was the house of Simon the Tanner. You know the story of Tabitha, by interpretation called Dorcas, the woman full of good works and alms-deeds; how she became ill and died, and how Peter knelt down and prayed, and turning to the body bade Tabitha to rise, and how she rose again, and many believed in the Lord. house and see an Arab woman grinding corn. narrow stone stairs on the outside of the house, and come to the roof, a walled roof paved with stone. Here Simon the Tanner and Peter his friend would sit and take the air, and look out upon the sea, that rolled beneath them even as we behold it now, and talk no doubt of the many wonders that had been seen in Jerusalem. It was on this housetop where Peter came to pray, and where being hungry he fell into a trance, and saw the vision recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, of the vessel descending from the heavens with all manner of beasts and creeping things and fowls of the air. From this house came that fine gospel truth, the finest of all political truths, that God is no respecter of persons. Tradition at least assigns this as the house, and it is as well not to challenge your traditions, but to look and believe.

We enter the

We go up a

When we had seen the house of Simon the Tanner we had

seen all that was sacred or memorable about Jaffa. We might have hunted up the spot where Bonaparte put to death his prisoners, but our visit to the Holy Land is not affected by French history. We prepared for Jerusalem. The distance is forty miles, and all that could be done for us were three clumsy wagons without tops, with Mr. Hardegg on horseback as an escort. Our party for Jerusalem included four of the "Vandalia's" officers, Lieutenant-Commander A. G. Caldwell, Lieutenant J. W. Miller, Engineer D. M. Fulmer, and Midshipman W. S. Hogg. It was too early in the season to see

Palestine in its glory; but the plain was rich and fertile, sparkling with lilies and scarlet anemones, with groves of orange trees bending under their golden fruitage, the almond trees coming into bloom. We had been so many days in Egypt with no forest companions save the drooping datepalms that we missed the parched and barren fields. It was grateful, then, to see Palestine in its greenness. Even the rain was so homelike that we welcomed it and drove steadily through it until, when the sun went down, we were in the town of Ramleh, where we remained for the night. Our first lodging in the Holy Land was humble enough, for by the time we

reached Ramleh the rain was pouring. Still we were in the most cheerful humor, ready only to see the bright side of everything. Even Caldwell-who had to put on his uniform and sword to go out into the mud, with an Arab carrying a lantern walking ahead and two soldiers behind, and various dogs howling in escort-even Caldwell, who had to call on the governor, seemed to think that there never was so jolly an errand. None of us volunteered to go along. We preferred to sit on the large benches in a room partly dining room, partly kitchen, partly parlor eggs frying in one corner, servants eating in

another, with a huge lazy dog very much at home. Caldwell came back in a half hour dripping, and reported the governor in a fine state of health and propriety, and we went to bed bivouacking on beds that were regarded with natural suspicion. Before retiring we had marching orders for six in the morning, and although six is an early hour we were all in readiness, the General first at his post. It was seven before we left Ramleh and pushed on to Jerusalem.

There are no interesting facts about Ramleh, except that it is of Saracen origin. The tradition that here lived Joseph of Arimathea is not accepted, and the town was not deemed worthy

of scrutiny. We had an escort of lepers as we took our places in our wagons, and were glad to hurry away. We kept our journey, our eyes bent toward Jerusalem, and looking with quickened interest as Mr. Hardegg told us that the blue mountains coming in view were the mountains of Judea. Our road is toward the southeast. The rain falls, but it is not an exacting shower. The General has found a horse, and when offered the affectation of an umbrella and urged to swathe his neck in silk, says it is only a mist, and gallops ahead. We are passing from the plain of Sharon into the country of Joshua and Samson. The road becomes rough and stony, and we who are in the carts go bumping, thumping along, over the very worst road perhaps in the world. But there is no one who, in the spare moments when he is not holding on to the sides of the cart lest there might be too precipitate an introduction to the Holy Land, does not feel, so strong are the memories of childhood, that it is one of the most agreeable and most comfortable trips ever made. We are coming into the foot-hills. We are passing into the country of rocks. The summits of the hills glisten with the white, shining stone, which afar off looks like snow. In some of the valleys we note clusters of olive trees. The fertility of Palestine lies in the plain below. Around and ahead is the beauty of Palestine-the beauty of nature in her desolation-no houses, no farms, no trace of civilization but the telegraph poles. Now and then a swinging line of camels comes shambling along, led by a Bedouin. If we were to stop and pause we might remember that until within a very recent period wild men dwelt in these fastnesses, and that we might have a visit from the Bedouins; but I don't think it ever occurred to any one. And if they came they would find no weapon more dangerous than a cigar case, or a New Testament, which some of us are reading with diligence, in order to get up our Jerusalem and know what we are really to see when we come within its sacred walls. The utter absence of all civilization, of all trace of human existence, is the fact that meets and oppresses you. The hills have been washed bare by centuries of neglect, and terraced slopes that were once rich with all the

THE ROAD TO JERUSALEM.

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fruits of Palestine are sterile and abandoned. The valley over which we have ridden strikes the eye of the General as one of the richest he has ever seen, and he makes the observation that the plain of Sharon alone, under good government, and tilled by such labor as could be found in America, would raise wheat enough to feed all that portion of the Mediterranean. It is an abandoned land, with barrenness written on every hillside. For hath it not been written: "I will surely consume them saith the Lord: there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig

tree, and the leaf shall fade: and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them."

We pass the ruins of Gezer, which Mr. Hardegg tells us was once a royal city of the land of Canaan-that an Egyptian monarch captured it and gave it to Solomon, when that wise king but widely disseminated husband married the conqueror's daughter. There is nothing worth pausing to see, especially in the rain, and Solomon somehow does not interest us, for our thoughts are all on Jerusalem and one greater than Solomon. At certain intervals we see a square stone guard-house, where