THE CAVE OF THE WINDS. D' of the Winds" at Niagara? That's a foam. ID the reader ever go into "The Cave bath to talk of as long as one lives. Let me see if I can take you through it. From the Canada side you see a division of the American Fall next to Goat Island, where what appears to be the heaviest part of the great column of water is cut off by a projection of this dam, dashing with a thundering roar upon the rocks below. Here its foam and spray mingles with that of the main sheet, so as to seem continuous from the opposite side. The common pictures of the Falls show this distinctly. But there is a space between the two columns where a man of good nerves can sit, and, looking upward between the showers of foam, see the white rolling arch of the mighty torrent turning with slow majesty into the gulf below. That is the extreme venture of the experienced guide who conducts you through "The Cave of the Winds." But now we are standing on the cliffs above, and to get down we enter at the top of a round tower, by which you descend a narrow spiral staircase, wondering, after a while, if there is any bottom to it. You may meet other parties half-way, coming up, and ask them that question, and perhaps receive the same reply that I did: "Is there any top to this screw concern?" Down further and further. Finally, you emerge on the sloping banks under the cliffs, three-fourths of the distance to the river. Loose rocks, dripping water, hang above you, and you tremble for your crown. They seem to stick together without means of visible support, but the guide tells you they never fall in the summer. He threw a small stone against them to prove it, and brought down a peck of fragments, which caused me to fix my bathing-cap more firmly on my head. I then discovered that the crown was torn out of it. The guide furnishes the bathing clothes, and charges a dollar for his company. Down a rude flight of steps, holding on like death to the single banister doubtfully fastened on the inner side. A good jerk, you think, would break it down, and send you whirling into the foaming gulf. I was reminded of boys trying the ice on a milldam-" when she cracks, she's strong." Guide instructs you to cover your mouth with the left hand, or the wind and spray will take your breath. Down comes a barrel of water on your head, and up into your face a young hurricane of blinding foam. You stop, and if there were not others behind you would go back, and leave the cave to its own amphibious gods. But you don't want to look like a coward, so you go on, thinking yourself a fool. Turn aside a little, and down another flight of rickety steps, and then on a level twenty or thirty feet through such a water-pelting and tempest of foam as no human invention could ever get up. It comes from no certain, but always from the least-expected quarter. Just when you open your mouth to speak, or your eyes to look, then you get it like grape-shot from the Malakhoff tower. Now you are completely in the cave, sheltered by a projecting rock, and you shout and laugh in the ecstasy of enjoyment and wonder. A few minutes ago you stood on the cliffs, hot and sweating under a sultry sun, and ready to sink with weakness. Now you are fresh and invigorated in every joint and faculty. You have caught some of the torrent's own strength and spirit. Sublime and terrific, but its glory overcomes all fear. After a few moments' rest, you clamber through a crevice under magnificent showers. Here is another board with a single banister, and holding on with the consciousness that your life is in that grasp, you crawl and drag yourself out on the rocks at the foot of either division of this mighty Fall. There you sit and look up as you can. The foam boils and lashes all around you. The water-spirits, angry at your intrusion, whirl clouds of spray into your eyes. Down from above drives the furious water-blast. You know it is a dangerous spot, and that to unclasp a finger may be fatal in an instant; but O how sublime! How it mocks words! Over and on comes the rolling flood, perpetual, exhaustless. Its misty brow is among the clouds. And it has rolled there for ages. You clamber back, and emerging upon the other side, ascend the stairs, glad to get out alive-and in another instant asking yourself, "Why did I not stay longer in the midst of that grand and glorious scene?" Though you were there but for a few minutes you will never forget it, and the probability is that you will never make the venture again. THE CAPTIVITY AND ITS MEMENTOES. [AVING narrated the suc Jews, we proceed to notice the location and the condition of the exiles during the captivity. For the sake of distinctness, we would first and separately consider these points in reference to the ten tribes. The first removal of the Israelites, under Tiglath Pileser, is said, in the second Book of Kings, xv, 29, to have been to the land of Assyria; but no city or province of the empire is mentioned. The people then carried away, as already shown, were of the pastoral class, and many of situated very delightfully on the banks of the river Kizzil Ozan-the old Gozan. Hara, according to the authority just cited, is the Atropatenian Ecbatana, one of the grand treasure-cities of the Medes. Atropatenia is equivalent to Little Media. as distinguished from Great Media-a country described by Strabo as very populous, and capable of furnishing ten thousand horse and forty thousand foot. It consists, with the exception of its mountainous borders, of fertile plains and vales gently undulating and abundantly watered. The soil is described as fruitful; and Chardin says, that when he visited it, the country was in a state of good cultivation. them must have been poor and abject. | been taken to be the same as Athar, a city It has been supposed by some that they were conveyed to Nineveh, which city was then increasing and prospering under the energetic and ambitious rule of the renowned Tiglath; but if the capital city really was their destination, such help as they could afford, in carrying on his architectural and artistic projects, must have been in the humblest capacity as laborers-very different, indeed, from the service which could be rendered by subsequent captives taken from towns and skilled in the mechanical arts. They might, indeed, be employed for military purposes, helping to swell the number of troops, whose lives the eastern despots held very cheap, and devoted as sheep to the slaughter. Shalmaneser, in his large deportation of Israelites, transferred them, we are informed, to Halah and Habor by the river Gozan, and to Hara and other cities of the Medes. In these old geographical notices, it is difficult to identify the names with places at present known. Major Rawlinson, a great authority in such matters, considers this Halah to be the Calah of Asshur (Gen. x, 11), which is said to have given the name of Chalonites, mentioned by Strabo and Pliny, to the surrounding region. Calah, according to him, is Sur Puli Zohab, situated on the high road leading from Bagdad to Kirmanshah. Jewish traditions still linger in that locality, and David is regarded by the inhabitants as their titular prophet. Habor has The Israelites do not seem to have been regarded by the Medes other than as useful colonists; still we cannot but regard the state of the people a captivity; for the exiles, dwell where they might, and let them be never so kindly treated, were forcibly detained in a land distinct from their own, to which the patriotic among them would look back with strong affection. To be expatriated, would be to a true child of Israel a bitter calamity. And we may add, that if the first captives to Assyria were likely to feel being torn away from the farms and pastures of their fathers, the second and larger bands, under Shalmaneser, driven away from the cities, and including the people of a higher class, would, in all probability, be deeply sensible of their expatriation, and would pensively recur to the familiar streets and dwellings of their childhood, and to those still more endeared spots outside the walls-the place of their fathers' sepulchres. There are few persons, perhaps, now-adays who read the Apocrypha. Those who do, will recall to mind the connection between our present subject and the Book of Tobit; the hero of which is described as "the son of Aduel, the son of Gabael, of the seed of Asael, of the tribe of Nephthali, who in the time of Enemessar (or Shalmaneser), king of the Assyrians, was led captive." We beg to be distinctly understood, as by no means pledging our faith to the story of the adventures of young Tobias and his dog-the marvels wrought by the liver of the fish-and the driving away the devil Asmodeus by the smell of perfumed ashes; but still we feel justified in regarding the scenery and costume of the wonderful story, in which there may be after all a basis of truth, as affording interesting illustrations of the state of the Israelites during their early captivity. Tobit dwelt in Nineveh, and did many alms-deeds to his brethren, who came to him there; he was appointed purveyor to the Assyrian monarch, and is described as a man of property, for he deposited ten talents of silver- about $18,750 with one of his brethren at Rages, another city of the Medes. Then he describes his wife Anna as taking "women's works to do," and tells us that when she had sent them home to the owners, they paid her wages; and gave her also, besides, a kid." Sennacherib, probably after his unsuccessful expedition into Judea, is represented as cruelly treating the Israelitish captives, and casting forth their bodies unburied without the gates of Nineveh; whereupon Tobit performed the pious office of collecting the remains, and giving them decent sepulture; for which humane and patriotic deeds-as the story goes he had to leave the city in order to escape Sennacherib's wrath. On his return, after the death of that king, he heard of one of his own nation being strangled, and cast out in the market-place. Therefore, he says, "I wept, and after the going down of the sun, I went and made a grave and buried him; but my neighbors mocked me, and said, 'This man is not yet afraid to be put to death for this matter, who fled away, and yet, lo! he burieth the dead again.' The same night also I turned from the burial, and slept by the wall of my courtyard, being polluted, and my face was uncovered." These particulars, with the statement that Tobit lived in Nineveh till he was one hundred and fiftyeight years old, show at least how, in the estimation of the Jews afterward (they being of course in the possession of traditions handed down to them), the Israelites of the second captivity, located in Nineveh, were very differently circumstanced one from another; some possibly being held in slavery, others certainly being in a state of freedom; some being poor, and others rich; some treated with violence, and others held in honor; while women among them worked for wages, and received kindness at the hands of their employers. Nor should the touches of feeling recorded be forgotten, indicating as they do not only sentiments of humanity, but the nobler affections of brotherly regard toward all who were of the house of Israel. It is now time to direct the reader to the localities and the condition of exilelife connected with the history of the people of Jerusalem and Judah during their captivity. We have seen that Nebuchadnezzar carried away the princes, the mighty men of valor, and the craftsmen, in the eighth year of the reign of Jehoiachin. It was, no doubt, the same captivity to which reference is made at the beginning of the Book of Ezekiel. The captives, we are there told, were situated in the land of the Chaldeans, by the river Chebar. There are two streams which bear the name of Chebar or Khabour. The one which empties itself into the Euphrates, by the ancient Carchemishthe modern Karkaseea-is, no doubt, the river to which Ezekiel alludes. Mr. Layard has recently explored the region watered by this stream, and informs us that the Khabor flows through the richest pastures and meadows, while its banks are covered with flowers of every hue, and its windings through the green plain resemble the coils of a large and beautiful serpent. It is a lovely and enchanting scene, and the liveliest emotions of joy seized on the traveler's party as they approached it. Trees in full leaf line the water's edge, which is skirted with flowers, reaching above the horses' knees. In this neighborhood there are many mounds, and the banks of ancient canals are full of indications of Assyrian civilization. At present, it is a country famous for its abundant pasturage; and the Arab, as he bounds along, passes many a flock of sheep and herd of camels. The ruins of Arban, on the banks of the Khabour, formed the objects for which Mr. Layard especially undertook his expedition to this part of Mesopotamia; and he describes them as of a character resembling those of Nineveh. The character of the sculpture is rude, and bears "the same relation to the more delicately finished and highly ornamented sculptures of Nimroud, as the earliest remains of Greek art do to the exquisite monuments of Phidias and Praxiteles." These artistic features point to an early period of Assyrian civilization; while the Egyptian relics are also of a remote antiquity, perhaps as early as the fifteenth century before Christ-a period when we know there was an intimate connection between the two countries. Here, around this ancient city, then, when yet in its pride and glory, it is not improbable the captives were located to whom Ezekiel refers. The flatness of the scenery about Arban corresponds with the "plain" of which Ezekiel speaks repeatedly; yet, though flat, the prospect must have been delicious, for even in its present almost depopulated state, we are told that "the eye ranges over a level country bright with flowers, and spotted with black tents and innumerable flocks of sheep and camels." The color of these floral decorations, too, is ever changing. "After being for some days of a golden yellow, a new family of flowers would spring up, and it would turn almost in a night to a bright scarlet, which would again as suddenly give way to the deepest blue. Then the meadows would be mottled with various hues, or would put on the emerald green of the most luxuriant of pastures." Ezekiel observes that he came to those of the captivity at Tel-Abib, that dwelt by the river of Chebar-that Tel-Abib meaning the mound of the heaps of the ears of corn. Whether this applies to a town, or simply to an artificial elevation, is by no means clear; but Mr. Layard thinks it probable that around Arban may have been pitched the tents of the sorrowing Jews; that in its pastures they fed their flocks, and drank of the same waters as are now flowing by those ruins. We agree with Mr. Layard, and picture to ourselves the great Assyrian city, Nineveh-like, with a palace-temple on the now crumbling mound; terrace above terrace; noble halls, and slabs, and statuary, crowning the spot; at the same time keeping our eye on those outspread meadows and fields, with their enamel of flowers of many dyes-the entire scene forming a background for our conceptions of Jewish exile life in that locality. It seems obvious, on the face of the Book of Ezekiel, that the Jews at Tel-Abib were a distinct people, recognizing the. elders among them as a superior class; and they were probably allowed to submit themselves, within limits, to their ecclesiastical authority. The prophet Ezekiel ministered among them, it would appear, without any hinderance from the Assyrian rulers, and was evidently permitted to have meetings of the elders in his house. The people certainly look more like a band of colonists than a herd of slaves. One does not derive from the perusal of Ezekiel any idea of those around him being in the same condition as their forefathers in Egypt. As the ministrations of the prophet relate to the remnant continuing in Jerusalem, as well as to his fellow captives on the banks of the Chebar, the allusions to manners and customs cannot be certainly employed to illustrate the circumstances of the former; but as we find no allusion to slavery, as one of the evils under which the people labored, this may be taken as a negative proof that they enjoyed a considerable measure of freedom. Some, indeed, might be in the royal service, engaged on public works, laboring after the manner of artisans; others might be occupied in humbler handicraft, for masters among their brethren, or the people of the land. The employment of herdsmen and shepherds, too, seems not an unlikely one for many of the exiles; and the women we can imagine, like Anna, the wife of Tobit, doing "women's work" for hire. Of course such persons as sympathized with Ezekiel would be grieved in spirit at the sight of Assyrian idolatries; and we can imagine him and some of the elders clothed in sackcloth, with their keen black Hebrew eyes fixed in sorrowful meditation on the triumphant mockeries of the land of their captivity, as they contrasted them with the pure service of their own loved but deserted and desolate temple; yet the bulk of the captives certainly do not appear to have left behind them the sins for which God drove them out of their cherished home. They had abandoned the coarsness of their old image worship, but their hearts were still going after their covetousness; while gusts of levity and despair in turn came over their dark and unchastened minds. ment from being the rule rather than the exception. It is to be remembered, too, that Jehoiachin, in the forty-fourth year of the captivity, was released from imprisonment, and allowed to rank among the princes who sat at the royal table-a circumstance, by the way, which shows the dark as well as the bright side of the picture; how there was, at one time, harsh and rigorous treatment, and at another, favors the most flattering. But it must be remembered that in all this, we are only speaking of the outward --of what may be called the material condition of the captives. There were still sources of grief left, calculated to agitate the bosom inspired by Hebrew patriotism and piety. The captives were far away from their own land, and that, to Jews, involved the greatest privation, because in Jerusalem alone could the highest rites of their religion be performed. There were, most likely, synagogues in Babylon; some, indeed, have supposed that they originated there; but how they arose is a question involved in impenetrable uncertainty; yet most certainly there was no temple or tabernacle, no priest or sacrifice, no altar or ark for the child of Abraham on the banks of the Euphrates. Hence it was, that by the waters of Babylon they would sit down and weep; yea, they would weep when they "remembered Zion." We have further glimpses of exile life in the Book of Daniel; but there the scene is transferred from the banks of the Chebar to the banks of the Euphrates-a distance of about three hundred miles-a fact that serves to give us an idea of the wide dispersion of this guilty and chastised people. We see Daniel and the three Hebrew youths, his companions, in the very court of the monarch at Babylon, under the care of the master of the eunuchs, with a royal provision for support, and education in the learning and language of the Chaldeans. Subsequently, we behold the first of these exiles raised to an office of preeminence and power in the city and the empire, while his three companions also are advanced to political stations of trust, influence, and power. The circumstance shows that the Jews could not, as a race, have been branded by the Assyrians as utterly debased, and unworthy of all honor; and that they could not, moreover, have been systematically and constantly crushed It will be necessary for us now to direct under foot in the strange land into which a passing notice to the condition of the Jehovah had sent them as a chastisement. country of Israel and Judah while the There was the opportunity of a Jew rising captivity continued. We learn from the to share in the councils of the empire, and, sacred books, that when the Israelites as we should suppose, the opportunity for were taken away by Shalmaneser, he sent him to employ some of his brethren under to Samaria, to fill up the devastations that him in the public service. No notice is had been made, colonists from Babylon, given in the Book of Daniel of the He- Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and Sepharvaim. brews constituting a distinct class in the These strangers mingled with the few city of Babylon. Probably they were melancholy relics of an exiled race still more scattered among the rest of the popu- permitted to cling to their fatherland. lation, and were more intermingled with The state of things, moral and religious, them, than in some other parts of the which ensued may be inferred from the empire; yet in cases where piety was circumstance, that the people, among deep, like that of Daniel and his associates, whom the miserable remnant would be a moral distinction would be apparent, swallowed up under the general name such as the dullest Babylonian could not of Samaritans, worshiped the idols inoverlook. Acts of cruelty and oppression troduced from Assyria, until their country might sometimes occur-no doubt did so began to be depopulated by wild beasts. -still we cannot but think that the cir- Then, under the notion of this chastisecumstances of honor in which some of ment having come from a local deity, distheir nation were placed would reflect pleased at his worship having been negdignity on all, so as to prevent ill treat-lected, they requested the Assyrian king |