From Chambers' Journal. SAFED.

stone, a new road which had been laid out not many years ago towards the romantic chasm called the Warren, THE city of Safed is picturesquely was by some movement of the earth, situated high on the mountains of altogether crumpled up and destroyed. Naphtali. "Ras-el-Jelîl" is a name But the recent landslip at Sandgate common among the natives (the head is unexampled in the greatness of its of Galilee). It is the highest city in effects. On a barren hillside the earth- the land, being twenty-seven hundred slide would not have been of much con- feet above the Mediterranean, and sequence, but coming upon a thriving thirty-three hundred and eighty feet little town and utterly dismantling and above the Sea of Galilee. The castleruining the best part of it, the disaster hill is the highest point to westward of becomes something terrible, especially the range of hills lying between the to those who, like the greater part of Jordan Valley and the Wadies Leimûn mankind, can only make both ends meet and 'Amûd. It is almost severed from with extreme difficulty. Three-quarters its fellows by the Wady Hamra, where of a mile of sea-front drawn forward gardens are always green, watered by like a strip of carpet, and crumpling up perennial springs. Of the once noble and breaking everything it brings with castle nothing remains but a confused it, terrace, streets, villas, forms a dis-heap, visible from afar. The city is aster of such proportions that only built around this hill in the form of a national aid can repair what is really a horseshoe, open to the north, spreading national calamity. There was nothing a little up the hill beyond the wady to about Sandgate to suggest the danger of the east; the "toe" peering over a such a catastrophe. The town had little mound southward, whence the grown and increased, and had become whole extent of the Sea of Galilee is a picture of brightness and verdure, seen. but it was no latter-day watering-place, The view from the castle-hill is wide got up by speculators and builders. and varied, although not so extensive When Folkestone was, if not a fuzzy as that from the neighboring height of down, yet a very small and fishy town Jebel Canaân. The road to Damascus with a silted-up harbor, and narrow winds through olive groves north-eaststreets festooned with dry dabs, Sand- wards, and disappears between two gate was a neat little watering-place, rounded grassy hills that guard the denot-much known to Londoners, but the scent to the Waters of Merom. On the resort of gentle and simple from the hillside to the left two little hamlets, county of Kent. To place little Sand-'Ain Bîreh and 'Ain-ez-Zaitûn, are hudgate in a way to regain its former state dled closely together beside the springs of quiet prosperity and independence, from which their names are taken, is a matter surely not beyond the resources of this great and wealthy country. There is a feeling, too, among the people of the neighborhood, that the action of the Trinity Board in blowing up with heavy charges of dynamite the wrecks of the Calypso and the Benvenue in the bay before the town, was at all events contributory to the disaster. The earth-waves caused by heavy explosions travel far and have a powerful influence on surrounding strata, and the official dynamiting may have started a landslip which might otherwise not have come off for another hundred years, and perhaps not even then.

whose tiny silver streams glide under the shadow of fig, pomegranate, and vine that clothe the cultivated slopes below.

The mud walls of many villages marking the sites of ancient Galilean cities stud the landscape to the north and north-west. The old fortress of Gischala is only just hidden by the shoulder of a hill. Over against us to the west is the Jermuk range, cut off from the Safed hills by Wady Leimûn, or, as it is sometimes called, "Wady-elTawahîn" (Valley of Mills), from the number of primitive mills with ivycovered walls in the midst of brambly

thickets, driven by the water which | east lie the beautifully rounded, thickly flows all the year round in the bottom wooded hills of Gilead, yielding pasture of the gorge. The rocky, precipitous and shelter to the flocks as of old; and sides are in some parts not less than when the air is perfectly clear, the grim fifteen hundred feet in height. Deep heights of the mountains of Moab may in the bosom of the valley is a curious be seen touching the sky away in the intermittent spring, a constant source south. of wonderment to the natives, who call it the "well of the demons."

The high and isolated position of Safed renders it comparatively secure Jebel Jermuk, a finely shaped moun- from epidemics, notwithstanding the tain, the most northerly point of the insanitary conditions that prevail. It range of that name, is the highest in is the most populous city in northern Palestine, rising to a height of four Palestine; but anything like accuracy thousand feet. On the gentle slope at in estimating the numbers in this counits western base stands the ancient try is impossible. Of Moslems there synagogue of Meiron, a sanctuary and may be from five to six thousand; place of pilgrimage to pious Jews all Christians, between two and three hunover the world. Strange tales are told dred; Jews, from twelve to fifteen of their doings at the great festival thousand. Two influences, acting in called the "feast of the burning," opposite directions, affect the calculawhich is held here annually. It has tion of the Jews. The census is given been attempted to identify this place in by heads of communities, who are with the Meroz so bitterly mentioned in always more or less open to corruption. the song of Deborah. Tabor appears The returns made to the religious heads like a great dark beehive sitting at the are sure to be as large as possible— corner of the magnificent plain of Es- that is, as large as they can with dedraelon, which, beyond the uplands of cency be made. The pious contributors Nazareth, stretches away to the base of of alms for the support of the holy Mount Carmel by the sea. Little Her- Jews in Palestine regulate their submon, with the white-walled church on scriptions to some extent by the numits north-western slope, marking the bers to whom relief is to be given. If site of Nain; Gilboa, of tragic mem- the numbers can be increased a little, ory; and the mountains of Samaria there will be all the more for the bona beyond; Ebal and Gerizim raising their fide recipients. Scrupulousness in seproud shoulders above their fellows, as curing advantage has not been a distinif to boast of their ancient fame', are guishing mark of the race since the all visible from where we stand. From day on which the artful Jacob deceived no point are the blue waters of Galilee poor blind old Isaac. On the other seen to greater advantage. Deep set hand, a tax is levied by the government among surrounding hills, when spring on all Ottoman subjects, at so much throws her mantle of dazzling green over per head of population. The same inthe land, it is a veritable "sapphire in terest which in the former case leads to the midst of emeralds." The curiously increase, in this prompts to diminish arranged hills of Jaulân, volcanoes of the returns; the result, of course, is the antique world, whose fires have that there are no reliable statistics. been quenched for ages, lie eastward like huge, dark masses rolled down from the majestic sides of Great Her- Education is at a low ebb. Educamon. Beyond them we see the far- tion, properly so called, has indeed, unstretching plains of Haurân, the wealth til recently, been beyond the reach of of whose soil is not yet known to this the inhabitants. Among the Jews, the generation, the giant forms of the ability to read Hebrew, whether underHaurân mountains-Jebel-ed-Druse - standing it or not, is common enough, looming up on the edge of the desert and many of them can write and reckon some eighty miles away. To the south-sufficiently to be able to manage a little

The figures given may be taken as a fair approximation.

a few who have been out in the world on begging expeditions have any general information, and this they are by no means desirous to impart. Judaism resembles Romanism very closely in the manner in which the knowing ones try to keep the common people in ignorance. Among the Arabs, again, outside the government circles, men who can read and write to any purpose are as scarce as snowdrifts in Palestine. The soil, which has been so little disturbed by cultivation, and is so thinly sown with wheat, affords magnificent opportunities for the growth of weeds and thistles. Weeds and thistles there are in abundance. The minds of Jew and Gentile are dominated by superstition. Their religious observances are cherished in proportion as they derive their sanction from superstition. This accounts largely for the bitterness of their bigotry. Many are the strange customs to which these people yield willing homage; what follows is a fair example.

shop; but there education stops. Only to the general uproar and confusion. We came forth in haste to learn the cause of the alarm. The streets below us were filled by a wildly gesticulating mob, howling fiercely, with eyes of flame directed to the moon. Instinctively we looked towards the pale queen of night, and saw a little black notch, as it were, cut out of her bright circle. As I listened intently, by and by from the babel below I was able to distinguish clearly the words, shouted over and over again by every member of the crowd, with every variety of emphasis: "Ya hoot dasher kamarna! Ya hoot, minshan Ullah, dasher kamarna, ahsan ma natla' lak binnaboot !” Which may be rendered: "O whale, let go our Moon! O whale, for Ullah's sake, let go our moon, or else we'll come up to you with a club! Į " The look of terror on the faces of many showed that they only too firmly believed what the words indicated. Nothing was more certain to them than that a great whale from the vasty deep had risen from the dark waters to wipe out the glory of the night by making a supper of the moon. Children cry for the moon; but he had already gripped it in his awful jaws! Their only hope of saving her lay in their power to give the whale such a fright, that in trembling he should let fall his prey and flee for his own life.

The night of July 12, 1889, I spent in Safed. The moon rose with all her Syrian splendor, revealing beauties in the landscape unsuspected under the fierce glare of the sun. We watched her slow ascent into the cloudless heavens, and amused ourselves a while trying to identify places around, wrapped in the clear amber of her As time passed and the dark shadow beams. We had not long retired, when spread more and more over the face of a loud crash resounded through the the moon, their excitement grew almost still night air, followed by the clang of to frenzy. The whale did not seem to drums and an indescribable mixture of care for their threats, and soon their noises, increasing in volume every mo- beautiful moon would be gone beyond ment, produced by clashing tin cans recall ! Full three-quarters of the and crockery, thumping upon boards golden disc were obscured ere the with great sticks, firing of guns, the shadow began to move off. Then gradhoarse shoutings of men, the piercing ually a jubilant note rose from amid the voices of children, and, high above all, clangor. The shouting and the crashthe shrill cry of the women a peculiar ing and the clashing waxed merrier, as cry, uttered in times of great excite- if a great weight were being lifted from ment, whether of joy, of sorrow, or of the minds of the mob. They rushed anxiety. The din grew thicker, and hither and thither with quickening the swelling sound floated away over pace, hallooing, and vaporing their intervening valleys, to echo among the clubs; ere long the voice of laughter moonlit hills, as one part of the city was heard, and at last, amid a burst of after another awoke to the seriousness shouting, clashing of metal and staves, of the occasion, to contribute its share accompanied by a discharge of mus

ketry that made the mountains echo | appointed night came, and exactly at again, the shadow passed from the rim, the hour indicated by he astronomer a and the moon swam away gloriously bit seemed taken out of the moon. in the translucent air. The crowd But, alas! the king slept; for any one speedily left the streets; and soon the to awaken him it would be certain defenders of the moon were seen death; if he did not see the eclipse, stretching themselves on their rugs on the roofs, each one perfectly satisfied that in rescuing their beloved moon from the jaws of the whale he had well earned a night's repose.

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there would be no escape for the astronomer. Anxiety gave way to anguish as the shadow spread, covering almost the entire disc, and still the king slept. Suddenly rousing himself, the A native gentleman of more than prisoner declared to his custodians that average intelligence had joined us while a great whale had come from the diswe watched the strange scene. I asked tant floods to swallow the moon, that how the custom could have risen. He unless the people made a fearful noise told me that "once upon a time and frightened him away, they would famous astronomer resided at the court never see their moon again. At once of a certain great king. He was a wise there arose on every hand a confused man, and as such honored of king and noise, and mingling of loud, discordant people. A man who has knowledge of voices such as had never been heard in the stars in their courses" is held to the city before. As the sly astronomer be wise in things far beyond the ken of had intended, it penetrated to the ear ordinary mortals. His counsel was of the sleeping monarch, who forthsought in affairs of the highest impor- with strode out to learn the cause. tance; and his skill in meeting diffi- With his distressed subjects he looked culties and in giving suitable advice, at the moon, and lo! it had happened combined with his well-known probity, according to the words of the wise secured for him not only the admiration man. He sent messengers hastily to but the confidence of all. From his the prison to fetch him forth; and observation of the movements of the when the moon escaped from the heavenly bodies, he had calculated that shadow and soared in beauty once more on a given date there would be an amid the blue, she looked down upon eclipse of the moon. In a moment of the astronomer restored to his honors, unhappy inspiration he told the king his royal master seeking by all means what would take place. The king, like to efface from his worthy counsellor's so many children of the Orient, was mind every trace of his recent humiliasuperstitious to a degree. He did not tion. doubt that some potent evil spell had fallen upon his long-trusted friend; and that, were he left free, he would by his enchantments produce the effects he had prophesied, and perhaps blot the moon out of the heavens. Repressing all sentiments as Eastern tyrants so easily can, he ordered his quondam counsellor to be put fast in prison and kept there until the time should pass and the event declare whether or not he had spoken honestly. The astronomer went to prison, but waited confidently the hour and the event that should set him free. At length the

To the populace it was unnecessary to give further explanation; hence the belief so prevalent even up to the present time, that in the gloomy twilight of the unfathomable abyss there is a fearful monster, who, consumed with a desire to devour the moon, is ever ready for an opportunity to pounce upon it. An eclipse is simply an attempt on his part to give effect to his desire -an attempt in which he fails, simply because he is so well watched and shouted at and threatened that his courage fails him just when success is touched!

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