inspires a superstitious awe. The effect is greatest at night, when the stars glitter through the openings of what appear to be continuous cliffs, and the moon sheds an undefined light, allowing the imagination to fill up the subject with its own wondrous creations. The abode then seems fit only for Sibyls trances or the orgies of a Thessalian saga.

"On arriving below a monastery, we strained our lungs, and exerted our eloquence in prayers to be hoisted up, but breath and tropes were alike unavailing; a basket, however, with a light and some homely fare, cameso whirling down. Next morning a net was let down; it was spread on the ground, and we were placed on it on a capote, our legs, arms, and heads, properly stowed away, the net gathered round us, and hitched on to a massive hook. All's right,' was shouted out from below; the monks began to heave round with the capstan bars above, and gusts of wind made us spin round, and thump against the rock in a majestically slow ascent of 150 feet. When arrived at the top, we were hauled in like a bale of goods in a Liverpool warehouse; and, the net being let go, we found ourselves loose on the floor, and were immediately picked up by the monks. The monastery and monks resembled all other Greek monasteries and monks; the first filthy and straggling, the second ignorant and timorous. I recollect but one object that particularly struck me-the chambers of the Turkish state prisoners; for Ali Pasha, reviving the tyranny of old, had converted these recluses into jailors, and their retreat into a dungeon, as under the Greek emperors. They have a small library, containing, with some Fathers and rituals, classics and translations of modern authors, Rollin, for instance. I searched for MSS. and found a few, but they were all polemical. The monks confessed themselves ignorant and barbarous, but they spurned the idea of having made use of their MSS. to heat their oven.

"We were again slung in the net, and lowered amongst mortals. This was the monastery of Barlam. We crossed over some rocks, and found ourselves below the principal monastery, called Meteoron. A basket was sent down, and in it we deposited our teskere from Gench Aga, which was hoisted up, inspected, and permission granted for our ascent. We were, as before, stowed in a net, and the monks going briskly to work, we were hauled chuck up against the block, and then let down by the run, in the midst of an expectant circle of warriors and priests."

Mr. Stephens, whose "Incidents of Travel" in Eastern Parts, possess such a vivid reality and unassuming character as to have commanded both in this country and America a large share of notice and approval, has very considerably enriched the original publication by the Additions that now for the first time appear. Not only has the author's sensible, accurate and fresh manner recommended his volumes and prevented them from ever becoming tedious, but the places and the subjects concerning which he writes arrest the attention and are singularly interesting. Perhaps no writer has ever produced a better or more satisfactory book of travels, who had no other guide but the Holy Scriptures and a good general education, to pioneer and encourage him. Bit such seem alone to have formed

the young American's equipment, together with an inquisitive eye, an enviable degree of self-possession, a fund of ready sound sense, and a never-ceasing anxiety to think for himself, to speak as he thought, and by no means ever to exaggerate or extenuate for the sake of bolstering some pre-conceived doctrine or opinion. Just observe how he strips the Bedouins, the Arab children of the desert, of the romance one is extremely apt to entertain in regard to a barbarous and primitively pastoral people :—

"One by one I had seen the many illusions of my waking dreams fade away, the gorgeous pictures of Oriental scenes melt into nothing, but I had still clung to the primitive simplicity and purity of the children of the. desert, their temperance and abstinence, their contented poverty and contempt for luxuries, as approaching the true nobility of man's nature, and sustaining the poetry of the land of the East.' But my last dream was broken; and I never saw among the wanderers of the desert any traits of character or any habits of life which did not make me prize and value more the privileges of civilization. I had been more than a month alone with the Bedouins; and, to say nothing of their manners,--excluding women from all companionship, dipping their fingers up to the knuckles in the same dish, eating sheep's insides, and sleeping under tents crawling with vermin engendered by their filthy habits, their temperance and frugality are from necessity, not from choice; for in their nature they are gluttonous, and will eat at any time till they are gorged of whatever they can get, and then lie down and sleep like brutes."

One is apt to assume that these wanderers, these children of Nature, are free from some of the reproaches of civilised life,-not chargeable with an inordinate love of gold, for example. What says the American citizen ;

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Fellow-worshippers of mammon, hold up your heads, this reproach must not be confined to you!

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I never saw anything like the expression of face with which a Bedouin looks upon silver or gold. When he asks for bucksheeh, and receives the glittering metal, his eyes sparkle with wild delight, his fingers clutch it with eager rapacity, and he skulks away like the miser to count it over alone and hide it from all other eyes."

Nothing which the author has in the present volumes for the first time published will be more eagerly perused than the particulars of a journey through parts of Samaria, and of a visit to certain other remarkable places in the Holy Land, such as Naplous, Sebaste, Tiberias &c. &c. Naplous is the Shechem or Sychem of the Old Testament; and here our author at first saw little to recommend the place, or the people of the Samaritan synagogue in it,-superstition, credulity, and duplicity marking the conduct and words of the priest with whom he came particularly into contact. After all, however, Mr. Stephens says he spent an agreeable evening with his host and a brother; interesting conversation, kindness, since

rity, and honesty, taking the place of preceding duplicity. The following particulars will in part refresh the memories of our readers, and in part communicate what is new regarding the Samaritans:

"Much curiosity has existed in Europe among the learned with regard to this singular people, and several of the most learned men of their day, in London and Paris, have had correspondence with them, but without any satisfactory result. The descendants of the Israelites who remained and were not carried into captivity, on the rebuilding of the second temple, were denied the privilege of sharing the labour and expense of its reconstruction at Jerusalem; and, in mortification and revenge, they built a temple upon Mount Gerizim; and, ever since, a deadly hatred has existed between their descendants, the Samaritans, and the Jews."

Gibbon says, speaking of this people in the time of Justinian, "The Samaritans of Palestine were a motley race, an ambiguous sect, rejected as Jews, by the Pagans; by the Jews, as schismatics; and by the Christians, as idolators. The abomination of the cross had already been planted on their holy mount of Gerizim, but the persecution of Justinian offered only the alternative of baptism or rebellion. They chose the latter: under the standard of a desperate leader, they rose in arms, and retaliated their wrongs on the lives, the property, and the temples of a defenceless people. The Samaritans were finally subdued by the regular forces of the East; twenty thousand were slain, twenty thousand were sold by the Arabs to the infidels of Persia and India; and the remains of that unhappy nation atoned for the crime of treason by the sin of hypocrisy.' Mr. Stephens' account of their present opinions and condition we now quote:

"About sixty families are all now remaining, and these few relics of a once powerful people still dwell in their ancient capital, at the base of Mount Gerizim, under the shadow of their fallen temple. The brother of my host was particularly fond of talking about them. He was very old, and the most deformed man I ever saw who lived to attain a great age. His legs were long, and all his limbs were those of a tall man; but he was so hump-backed that in sitting he rested upon his hump. He asked me many questions about the Samaritans in England (of America he had no knowledge), and seemed determined to believe that there were many in that country; and told me that I might say to them, wherever I found them, that there they believed in one omnipotent and eternal God, the five books of Moses, and a future Messiah, and the day of the Messiah's coming to be near at hand; that they practised circumcision, went three times a year up to Mount Gerizim, the everlasting mountain,' to worship and offer sacrifice, and once a-year pitched their tents and left their virgins alone on the mount for seven days, expecting that one of them would conceive and bring forth a son, who should be the Messiah; that they allowed two wives, and, in case of barrenness, four; that the women were not permitted to enter the synagogue, except once a-year during fast, but on no account were they permitted to touch the sacred scroll; and that, although the Jews and

Samaritans had dealings in the marketplaces, &c., they hated each other now as much as their fathers did before them. I asked him about Jacob's Well; he said he knew the place, and that he knew our Saviour, or Jesus Christ, as he familiarly called him, very well; he was Joseph the carpenter's son, of Nazareth; but that the story which the Christians had about the women at the well was all a fiction; that Christ did not convert her; but that, on the contrary, she laughed at him, and even refused to give him water to drink. The information I received from these old men is more than I have ever seen in print about this reduced and singular people; and I give it for what it may be worth. I cannot help mentioning a little circumstance, which serves to illustrate the proverb that boys will be boys all the world over. While I was exploring the mysteries of the Samaritan creed, it being the season of Easter, a fine chubby little fellow came to me with a couple of eggs dyed yellow, and trying them on his teeth, just as we used to do in my boyish days (did we learn it from them, or they from us?)-gave me a choice; and though it may seem a trifling incident to the reader, it was not an uninteresting circumstance to me, this celebration of my 'pass' in the ancient Sychem, cracking eggs with a Samaritan boy."

Sebaste is the ancient Samaria; and the ruins of Herod's Palace at this place must form our last specimen of the pictures and the Spirit of the East which we can afford to quote from what is disclosed in the two works before us.

"The palace of Herod stands on a table of land, on the very summit of the hill, overlooking every part of the surrounding country; and such were the exceeding softness and beauty of the scene, even under the wildness and waste of Arab cultivation, that the city seemed smiling in the midst of her desolation. All around was a beautiful valley, watered by running streams, and covered by a rich carpet of grass, sprinkled with wild flowers of every hue, and beyond, stretched like an open book before me, a boundary of fruitful mountains, the vine and the olive rising in terraces to their very summits; there, day after day, the haughty Herod had sat in his royal palace; and looking out upon all these beauties, his heart had become hardened with prosperity; here, among these still towering columns, the proud monarch had made a supper' to his lords, and high captains, and chief estates of Galilee;' here the daughter of Herodias, Herod's brother's wife danced before him, and the proud king promised with an oath to give her whatever she should ask, even to the half of his kingdom.' And while the feast and dance went on, the head of John the Baptist was brought in a charger and given to the damsel.' And Herod has gone and Herodias, Herod's brother's wife, has gone; and the lords, and the high captains, and the chief estates of Galilee' are gone! but the ruins of the palace in which they feasted are still here; the mountains and valleys which beheld their revels are here; and oh, what a comment upon the vanity of worldly greatness! a Fellah was turning his plough around one of the columns. I was sitting on a broken capital under a figtree by its side, and I asked him what were the ruins that we saw; and while his oxen were quietly cropping the grass that grew among the fragments of the marble floor, he told me that they were the ruins of the palace of a king-he believed, of the Christians; and while pilgrims from every quarter of the world turn aside

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from their path to do homage in the prison of his beheaded victim, the Arab who was driving his plough among the columns of his palace knew not the name of the haughty Herod. Even at this distance of time I look back with a feeling of uncommon interest upon my ramble among those ruins, talking with the Arab ploughman of the king who built it, leaning against a column which, perhaps, had often supported the haughty Herod, and er; looking out from this scene of desolation and ruin upon the most beautiful country in the Holy Land."

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We have only to add, in regard to Mr. Stephens' work, that while he avoids everything like an excess or an affectation of enthusiasm when traversing the Holy Land or regions which Scriptural Prophecy has rendered solemn and celebrated, and while he exhibits a constant regard for the facts and evidences which came under his immediate notice, the result after all of this honesty and plainness is to corroborate the Bible's testimony on all occasions, as well as to o increase our admiration of the writer's character for truth and piety.

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ce ART. X.-Letters on Paraguay: comprising an Account of a Four Years' Residence in that Republic, under the Government of the Dictator Francia. By J. P. and W. P. ROBERTSON. 2 Vols. London Murray. 1838.

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THE writers of these Letters, we learn, have resided for nearly twenty-five years in South America, their principal places of abode, besides Paraguay, being Buenos Ayres, Chile, and Peru. Their pursuits have been chiefly mercantile, but we must also state, that their travels have been various and extensive in the country mentioned, and their acquisition of general knowledge great, while the cultivation of literary taste has been most industriously turned to the best account. We have never been more charmed by any book. There is a sound and practical wisdom in the work, a reality, a freshness, an author-like excellence, altogether extraordinary; and while every letter conveys valuable information of some kind, the vivacity, the graphic powers, and the numerous incidents and scenes described excite and gratify as deep an interest as the very best of novels ever did. We have no hesitation in saying that even after all the works, the various histories, journals, travels, and residences that have of late years appeared, having south America for their theme, we now see that the subject has not been exhausted. Never before have we obtained such a clear, full, and satisfactory view of its multifarious and curious parts, communciated in such an amusing and engaging form. The Letters are not like many publications which have passed under that title, and are only essays or dissertations assuming a familiar name, and pretending to the accuracy and reality as to facts and impressions which has been contemporaneous with the writing of them; for the authors tell us that the present documents were substantially written at the periods to