territory in the south-west of Palestine, is told in the Books of Joshua and Judges. It was here that the Danites built their city, and called it Dan, "after the name of Dan their father." From Tell-el-Kady to Banias, which lies due east, the road passes through beautiful park-like scenery, thickly studded with trees, principally oak, not very large, but very refreshing after the bare plain to the west of the Tell. The village of Banias, which is now inhabited by about three hundred and fifty Moslems, lies in the corner of a recess in the plain, and, except on the west, is surrounded on all sides by hills. The vegetation is most luxuriant, and the stone-built houses are almost completely secluded by trees of all sorts. Behind them, to the north-east, on the summit of a narrow rocky ridge, with deep valleys on the northern and southern sides, rises the Crusading castle of Subeibeh, one of the finest and best preserved of the ruined castles of Galilee. From a cave at the foot of the cliff an immense spring gushes out, and bursting in a multitude of streamlets, through masses of rock and débris, which are conjectured to be the records of an earthquake, it forms a strong stream below them. This, the Nahr Banias, is the other source of the Jordan, and in ancient times it was by far the larger spring, but now the quantity of water in both the Nahr Banias and the Nahr Leddan is about the same. In the face of the rock, immediately above the stream, but rendered accessible by the pile of débris, are cut three niches, and here too is a large grotto. The tablets on the niches bear Greek inscriptions, which have been partially deciphered, and leave no doubt that here we have the remnants of a pa gan shrine, of no vast antiquity, but of surpassing interest in its bearing upon history. Here the Greeks of the Macedonian kingdom of Antioch probably raised a temple to Pan, calling the colony Paneas, an appellation which has come down to us in the modern form Banias. NASIK.The district of Nasik, situated on the north-west frontier of the Nizam's territory, but within the limits of the Bombay Presidency, forms the subject of the sixteenth volume of the Bombay Gazetteer. Nasik lies for the most part on a tableland, and for administrative purposes it is divided into twelve districts, while two great natural divisions mark off the cultivable from the uncultivable region. These latter are called Dang and Desh, and while the former is a bare and barren expanse of country, with tracts of absolute desert, the latter is thickly wooded in parts, and cultivated throughout by an industrious population. Mr. James Campbell, the author of this volume, which has been compiled from the reports and personal observations of the local officers, gives a very interesting account of the inhabitants and their mode of living, while the state of their agriculture comes in for much clear and instructive description. Nasik is watered by, among other streams, the upper course of the Godavery, and had in 1872 a population of 734,386, or an average of about 902 to the square mile. Unquestionably the most interesting part of the history of Nasik is its early associations. It was here, or near here, that Agastya, the great Aryan sage who introduced civilization into the peninsula, had a hermitage, in which he received visits from the hero Ram, and in the epic which recites that leader's deeds—the "Ramayan"- Nasik is described as "a forest country rich in fruit and flower trees, full of wild beasts and birds." After the long interval of twenty centuries Nasik formed part of the State of the Mahratta chief Holkar, when the Peishwa made in 1817 his last effort to array the national forces against the English. Holkar's forces were routed early in the war, and as a consequence Nasik became in 1818 a British possession. During the mutiny there were local disturb ances which led to some severe fighting, and the rebels, who really took arms only with a view to plunder, were not defeated until a special corps of Kolis, described as "brave highlanders and born soldiers," had been raised for the purpose of assisting the local police. Several English officers lost their lives, and it was not until the end of 1859 that the surprise and death of their leader, Baghoji, gave the assurance of tranquillity. The most attractive chapter in the volume is one of two hundred and fifty pages, on the places of interest, and among these the numerous hill-forts are not the least important. In conclusion, we may say that there are few parts of India contain ing finer scenery than Nasik, which may be identified with the Janasthan of antiquity. I. THE CHRONICLE OF JAMES I. OF ARAGON, Edinburgh Review, Belgravia, For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. THE ROBIN. HER long white fingers o'er the keys And 'neath their touch, in low sweet swell, Over the poet's page she bent, 'Mid flowers and china smoked the cup The pretty, faithful, constant friend, All The Year Round. BLACKTHORN. SHE sleeps! Ah, welcome spell of rest I sit me softly by her side, A little space I may abide, To watch her breathing free; Ah me! the thin, care-sharpened cheek, The sunken brows, that dumbly speak Of all she shares with me! I wooed her from the lap of wealth, I look upon her sleeping face, The roses of this lower world Ah, trusting heart! too true to me, And cloud instead of sun. What! wakest thou to hear my moan? Lies life's best music yet; Take thou this little blackthorn spray Though hope has failed, true love survives, From The Edinburgh Review. THE CHRONICLE OF JAMES I. OF ARAGON. making were all Semitic arts, and when Hebrew scholars, interpreters, surgeons, and stewards found favor at Spanish THE Commentaries of the king of Ara- courts. As the picture of a long-forgotten gon, whom the world surnamed the "Con- past, we value the "Chronicle" of James queror," were known as his "Chronicle," of Aragon, and we hope to prove to our and as such formed one of the most re-readers that the Conquistador deserves a markable literary works of a remarkable high place among royal and noble authors. age. They were written by the warlike Spanish history has had an extraordiking in Catalan, a dialect differing but nary charm for some minds. Schiller's slightly from the Occitanian speech, from tragedy, Robertson's history, the works of that langue d'oc which the Castilians Prescott and of Motley, the poems of despised, but which flourished on the Longfellow and of George Eliot, like the northern side of the Pyrenees. It is now travels of the late Mr. Richard Ford, and obsolete, or spoken only by the pastres, but the exquisite monographs of Sir William in the thirteenth century it was the lan- Stirling Maxwell, all show how the best guage of poets and of kings. The father pens have been inspired by cosas de Esof Eleanor of Guienne wrote complaintes paña. The late Mr. James Forster was and sirventes in it, and Queen Eleanor another student of Spanish pages and of herself spoke it at the English court. The murdered troubadour, who has given his name to the Pré Catalan, so charmed Philip Augustus with his songs, that the jealous courtiers made away with him. Crusaders spoke in Catalan under the walls of Jerusalem, and in Catalan did Richard Coeur-de-Lion answer the poetical defiance of the dauphin of Auvergne. But those days are long past, and the Chronicle," had it remained only in its Catalan wording, must have been a sealed book to many students. Yet its undeniable authenticity, the size of the work, and its vivid touches of men and manners during the thirteenth century, all commend it for study. Its glimpses of the art of military engineering before the use of gunpowder must attract one class of read. ers, while a larger class will appropriate its sketches of Saracen life, and recognize the value of its notices of the Spanish Jews in a century when chemistry, alchemy, fortifications, irrigation, and paper Spanish manners. An English translation of the "Chronicle" appeared to him to be desirable; yet when he began to prepare an English version of the Conqueror's autobiography he anticipated great difficulties in the execution of his task. He might even have relinquished it had he not been able to rely on the help and sympathy of Don Pascuale de Gayangos. Of that gentleman Mr. Ford wrote in his "Handbook" that " he was by far the best Hispano-Arabic authority of the day, uniting to indefatigable industry a sound critical judgment." Such as Mr. Ford found this guide to be in 1845, he proved the same thirty years later to Mr. James Forster. In fact on Don Pascuale de Gayangos has devolved the sad duty of editing and completing Forster's unfinished work. Death overtook that patient scholar at his desk, when busied with a book that was to rescue from death's oblivion the loves and hates, the faults and the achievements, of Christian and Moslem captains. We must ask our readers to place themselves to-day at that desk, to turn the brilliant and scholarlike pages, to forget the "burning questions" of the hour, and to transplant themselves in imagination to the banks of the Ebro and the Garonne. We will ask them even to embark with King James, and to plant the cross in Mallorca, to roll up engines of war against the walls of Valencia, to reckon with the Jews of Béziers and of Barcelona, and to dictate to Moorish chiefs or to Albigeois | I was christened el Jacme. . . . My father the heretics, and in an age when sword and king was the most bounteous king that ever stake were held to be the best arguments was in Spain, the most courteous and the most of orthodoxy, just as the tournament and gracious, so that he gave away much treasure, the battle were the chief pastime of Ibe- through which his revenue and lands were diminished. He was a good man at arms, as rian kings. good as any in the world. Of his other good qualities I will not write, so as not to lengthen this writing. James I. was the son of Don Pedro II. of Aragon, and of Doña Maria, daughter and heiress of William of Montpellier, by Eudoxia, daughter of Emmanuel Comnenus, emperor of Constantinople. Born at Montpellier on the eve of Candlemas, February, 1208, the appearance of a male infant was hailed with joy by his parents. It was further esteemed a good omen that he should have appeared on such a high festival, for Spaniards were then, as now, fervent in their devotion to the Virgo deipara. Then, as now, the horoscope of a child was a weighty matter, and never to be drawn with pleasure if the infant chanced to be a Zahora, a person born on a Friday. No such melancholy and spirithaunted creature was Doña Maria's firstborn, but rather to be compared to that Cid Campeador que en buen hora nascó, and the queen caused him to be carried at once to the Church of Our Lady. "The clergy," says the "Chronicle," "did not notice the arrival of those who carried me, and as they entered the church were sing ing Te Deum laudamus. Then I was carried to St. Firmin, and when those who carried me entered that church the priests were singing Benedicite Dominus Deus Israel; so when they carried me back to my mother she was glad because of the prognostics that had happened." Next came the question of naming the child. Rome having appropriated, so to speak, the greatest of the apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, Spanish devotion had been fain to concentrate itself round Santiago. But Doña Maria meant to show no favoritism, rather to let a heavenly patron claim her son as his godchild. So she made twelve candles, all of one size and weight, and had them all lighted together, and gave each the name of an apostle, and vowed to our Lord that I should be christened by the name of that which lasted longest. And so it happened that the candle that went by the name of St. James lasted a good finger's breadth more than all the others. And owing to that circumstance, and to the grace of God, For the sake of brevity the author here omits a circumstance which probably was not without its effects on his own life and style. King Pedro was a man of letters, a cultivator of Provençal poetry, and as such a patron of troubadors, whom he the queen, Doña Maria, my mother, I will protected and collected at his court. "Of in the world it was she." This is evisay that if ever there was a good woman the rather cynical form of the phrase must dently meant to be a flattering notice, and be set down to the personal experiences of el Conquistador, who, though he had a great respect both for his mother, his wife, and his eldest daughter, had unfortunately an extensive acquaintance with "lighthearted lemans." "This Doña Maria Rome, where she died, but all over the was called the holy queen, not only in world besides. Many sick are to this day cured by drinking, in water or in wine, the dust scraped from her tombstone in the church of St. Peter at Rome, where she is buried, near Santa Petronilla, the daughter of St. Peter." There, after an tador sleeps well. Her experience of the agitated life the mother of el Conquis furnished a tale for the "Decameron." changes and chances of life might have The grandchild of an emperor, she was thrice married: first to Barral, Count of Marseilles, then to Bernard, Count of But she found her old home closed against Comminges, from whom she ran away. her. Her father, having married again, proceeded to disinherit her for the sake of two boys newly born to him. Innocent III., who protected Doña Maria, refused, however, to legitimatize what he termed the bastards of Montpellier, and, in order to rehabilitate the ill-used heiress, the pope arranged for her union with Pedro II. of Aragon, a king who was nothing loth to enlarge his borders on the northern side of the mountains. But fortune |