ASCENT OF THE MOUNTAIN-DESOLATE PROSPECT FROM THE SUMMIT-TOMB OF AARON.

SCRIPTURE NOTICE.

"AND the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, journeyed from Kadesh, and came unto Mount Hor. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in Mount Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom, saying, Aaron shall be gathered unto his people... Take Aaron and Eleazar his son, and bring them up unto Mount Hor; and strip Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son and Aaron shall be gathered unto his people, and shall die there. And... they went up into Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation... and Aaron died there in the top of the Mount."-Numb. xx. 22-28. (See also ch. xxi. 4. xxxiii. 37-39. Deut. xxxii. 50.)

".... The mountain was high, towering above all the rest, bare and rugged to its very summit, without a tree or even a bush growing on its sterile side; and our road lay directly along its base. For some distance we found the ascent sufficiently smooth and easy, much more so than that of Mount Sinai,-and so far as we could see before us, it was likely to continue the same all the way up. We were congratulating ourselves, when we came to a yawning and precipitous chasm, opening its horrid jaws almost from the very base of the mountain. From the distance at which we had marked out our route, the irregularities of surface could not be distinguished, but here it was quite another thing. We stood on the brink of the chasm and looked at each other in blank amazement; looking down into its deep abyss, as soon as we saw there was no probability of getting over it, we began to descend; and groping, sliding, jumping and holding on with hands and feet, we reached the bottom-and after another hard half-hour's toil, were resting our wearied limbs upon the opposite brink, at about the same elevation as that of the place from which we had started. This success encouraged us; and looking up, we saw through a small opening before us, though still at a great distance, the white dome that covered the tomb of the first high-priest of Israel.

"Again, with stout hearts we resumed our ascent; but, as we might reasonably have supposed, that which we had passed was not the only chasm in the mountains. What had appeared to us slight irregularities of surface we found great fissures and openings, presenting themselves before us in quick succession; not, indeed, as absolute and insurmountable barriers to farther progress, but affording us only the encouragement of a bare probability of crossing them. The whole mountain, from its base to its summit, was rocky and naked, affording not a tree or bush to assist us; and all that we had to lay hold on by were the rough and broken corners of the porous sandstone rocks, which crumbled in our hands, and

under our feet, and more than once put us in danger of our lives. Several times after desperate exertion, we sat down perfectly discouraged at seeing another and another chasm before us, and more than once we were on the point of giving up the attempt, thinking it impossible to advance any farther; but we had come so far, and taken so little notice of our road, that it was almost as impossible to return; and a distant and accidental view of the whitened dome would revive our courage, and stimulate us to another effort.

"Several times I mounted on Paul's shoulders, and with his help reached the top of a precipitous or overhanging rock, and then helped him in turn; and in the rough grasps that we gave each other, neither thought of the relation of master and servant. On the sides of that rugged mountain, so desolate, so completely removed from the world, whose difficult ascent had been attempted by few human footsteps since the days when Moses and Aaron went up in the sight of all the congregation,' the master and the man lay on the same rock, encountering the same fatigues and dangers, and inspired by the same hopes and fears. After the most arduous scramble I ever accomplished, we attained the bald and hoary summit of the mountain; and before we had time to look around, at the extreme end of the desolate valley of El Ghor, our attention was instantly attracted and engrossed by one of the most interesting objects in the world, and we exclaimed at the same moment The Dead Sea!' Lying between the barren mountains of Arabia and Judah, presenting to us from that height no more than a small, calm, and silvery surface, was that mysterious sea which rolled its dark waters over the guilty cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, constantly receiving into its greedy bosom the whole body of the Jordan, but, unlike all other water, sending forth no tribute to the ocean.

"If I had never stood on the top of mount Sinai, I should say that nothing could exceed the desolation of

the view from the summit of mount Hor, its most striking objects being the dreary and rugged mountains of Seir, bare and naked of trees and verdure, and heaving their lofty summits to the skies, as if in a vain and fruitless effort to excel the mighty pile, on the top of which the high priest of Israel was buried. Before me was a land of barrenness and ruin; a land accursed of God, and against which the prophets had set their faces; the land of which it is thus written in the book of life: 'Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of Man, set thy face against mount Seir, and prophesy against it, and say unto it, Thus saith the Lord God .. Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end: therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee; sith thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee. Thus will I make mount Seir most desolate, and cut off from it him that passeth out and him that returneth. And I will fill his mountains with his slain men in thy hills, and in thy valleys, and in all thy rivers shall they fall that are slain with the sword. I will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not return, and ye shall know that I am the Lord." "-(Read Ezek. xxxv.)

"On the very top of the mount, reverenced alike by Mussulmans and Christians, is the tomb of Aaron. The building is about thirty feet square, containing a single chamber; in front of the door is a tombstone, in form like the oblong slabs in our churchyards, but larger and higher; the top rather larger than the bottom, and covered with a ragged pall of faded red cotton in shreds and patches. At its head stood a high round stone, on which the Mussulman offers his sacrifices. . . After going out, and from the very top of the tomb surveying again and again the desolate and dreary scene that

presented itself on every side, always terminating with the distant view of the Dead Sea, I returned within; and examining once more the tomb and the altar, walked carefully round the chamber. There was no light but

what came from the door; and, in groping in the extreme corner on one side, my foot descended into an aperture in the floor. I put it down carefully, and found a step; then another, and another, evidently a staircase leading to a chamber below. All was dark and I called to Paul to strike a light. He had no materials with him. . . A pile of dry brush and cotton rags lay at the foot of the sacrificial altar, I fired my pistol into it, gave one puff, and the whole mass was in a blaze. Each seized a burning brand, and we descended. At the foot of the steps was a narrow chamber, at the other end an iron grating, opening in the middle, and