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the building is called, among the guides and Jews, Abraham's house." The size of the whole was about sixty-two yards by eighty-five, as paced by Mr. Nicolayson. On returning to the road, after passing the Beit Haram, we came in sight to the westward of the plain of Sharon, stretching away to the Mediterranean Sea. In about three hours we found ourselves once more at the Pools of Solomon, and in two hours and a half we returned through the Jaffa gate of Jerusalem.

CHAP. XV.

THE PLAIN OF SHARON, RAMLAH, JAFFA, CAIPHA, ACRE, ETC.

SUMMER was advancing, the noontide heat of the East was becoming intolerable, the severity of an English winter was past, so I resolved to commence my return home. On the morning of Tuesday the 23d of May, having engaged an Arab dragoman with the needful train of tents, mules, canteen, and baggage, I issued, for the last time, from the Jaffa gate of the Holy city, and cast my farewell glances on its embattled walls, domes, and minarets, as they stood clearly outlined by the brilliant sunlight. And so checking my fretful horse, and studying for a while the aspect of that city, scene of the greatest woes and glories registered by history, to plant and root its memory in my heart, I turned and left at last the mournful trodden-down Jerusalem who preaches in her dust the truth of God's prophetic words. I was accompanied by the Rev. M. Margoliouth and by Mr. Schwartz, and a long train of kind friends followed them for some miles on the road, unwilling to say the

parting word. Passing by the settlement of Lifteh, we entered a very fertile wady, wherein is placed the village of Colhony, or Colonia, around which was an abundance of olives, figs, orange, and pomegranate trees; here we rested a while in the tents of the gentlemen of the American expedition, who were surveying the road from Jerusalem to Jaffa, and who kindly pressed us to assuage our thirst and rest ourselves in their encampment. Shortly after this, ascending a hill, we came in sight of the plain of Sharon, over which we were to pass, divided from us by a succession of rocky hills and fertile valleys. We passed through the village of the celebrated Abou Goosh, the man whose robber exploits so long made the road from Jerusalein to Jaffa unsafe, and who at last threatened even the Holy city itself. The taking of this man was characteristic of Turkish and oriental, political, and executive proceedings. He committed some outrages against the Pacha of Jerusalem, and so enraged that functionary, that he applied for aid from Constantinople to crush the marauder. When the 2000 troops landed at Jaffa to execute the sublime vengeance of the insulted government, before they dared to pass on to Jerusalem, these valiant soldiers of the Crescent asked a safe conduct of the very man they were

come to destroy. He gave it, was finally captured by chicanery, and laments to this day, in prison, the hour in which he trusted to the honour of a Turk. In the village of Abou Goosh, the house of this chieftain towers above the rest, and the ruins of an old Gothic church are conspicuous.

We descended through well-wooded rocky villages gradually into the plain of Sharon, by roads which must form a great contrast with those whereby Solomon conveyed from Joppa the beams and treasures of Lebanon for the building of his temple.

We now entered the plain of Sharon, which, although greatly inferior in its state of cultivation to what it would be in European or American hands, yet seemed to me to be better tilled than any other part of Palestine which I visited. I speak of course generally; though, even for particular parcels of ground, I think the gardens of Jaffa are the best and most flourishing in the land. Large crops of wheat and barley (now ripe), fields of tobacco (the curse of the East), dhowa (Indian corn), melons, and gourds, appeared on all sides, and near the villages, of which we passed two between Abou Goosh and Ramlah, these crops were enclosed with high hedges of prickly pear, which forms a most impenetrable