fascinating stream. I was unable to cross it then for fear of the Arabs; but now time was the only enemy, and after gathering a few shells, we returned "beyond Jordan" to the western side. The river here is 75 feet wide, and so shallow that the boatmen used poles to push the boat and to resist the current. The story that the Jordan passes through the lake without mingling its waters, like the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic, is without foundation. We will not stop to notice historically the site of Hinchea, but ride on along the river bank, verdant and fragrant now with its laurestinus willow, oleander and tamarisk. The villagers have fled from Hippe with Akil Agha-the famous Bedouin chief, who long held sway over the fifty miles of country that lies between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, but who is now in rebellion and disgrace, at Belkan, south of Gerash, near Essalt, where he awaits the departure of the Turkish troops from the border. We saw many quails, a few partridges, and wild pigeon in abundance. The eagles soaring over our heads suggested to my friend, the Arab story of the eagle's shadow, which he thus related: An eagle on awaking one bright morning shook out his feathers, and as the sun rose, his eye caught sight of the very long shadow he cast upon the ground. "Mashallah!" cried the eagle, “what a grand large bird I am,—I will have an ox for my dinner today." When he had finished his morning nap, the sun had risen higher, and at nine o'clock the eagle was astonished at his diminished proportions, and felt willing to be satisfied with a sheep for his midday meal. But when the sun had nearly reached the meridian, he discovered that he had scarcely any shadow at all, and feeling greatly humiliated exclaimed, "What a remarkably small bird I am--I shall be very glad to have a rabbit to eat." We camped April 21st at the ford of the Jordan, three hours from Tiberias near the mud village on a conical tell, called Obeidijeeh (everlasting). The view of the opposite shore was full of interest Gamala, Gadara on the hills beyond and some distance below, the river Jarmuk-called Mandhour by the Arabs-a tributary of the Jordan. Our tents had been pitched on a grassy plat, where the river ran quietly between low banks free from vegetation. Not far from this spot, the boat "Uncle Sam" of the U. S. Exploring Expedition* was shattered on the rocks, and below the camp are the falls or whirlpool of Bukaa, where the metallic boats of Capt. Lynch shot the rapids. Our tents were placed at a bend of the river, in sight of the ford. The hamlet near us was inhabited by fellahem, or the agricultural Arabs of the border. Between us and the village were papyrus tents, under which sat several armed men, whe proved to be some foraging bashi-bazouks, or irregulars of Rassoul Agha, who had been placed at this point, to prevent the return of the rebellious Arabs, and to overawe the smugglers at the ford. The dogs of the village called upon us first; then came the Sheik, a villainous-looking ogre, who gave us a gruff welcome, and manifested much curiosity as to our intentions. He scouted at our idea of camping at the ford, the most dangerous spot on the river, where thieves and Arabs might plunder us, and escape to the other side. But we were armed and the soldiers were near, and we preferred the clean greensward to the filthy village. While the tents were being put in order for the night, I strolled down to the ford where men, women and animals, and loads of grass and beans, were crossing. Stalwart Arabs, accustomed to the river, were standing there in readiness to assist the traveling public to cross the stream, not in a ferry-boat, but upon their shoulders, or in their arms, and sometimes leading persons by the hand. On the approach of a party to the bank *It does not appear that a boat ever floated on the Jordan previous to this century: even for the passage of the river boats were not in use; the stream was everywhere forded. A ferry-boat is mentioned in the English version of the Bible; but this was evidently nothing more than a raft to carry over the king's household; and was not used by the king himself or his attendants. 2 Sam. xix. 18. Robinson. on the other side, one tall muscular fellow threw off his aba or cloak, and rushed, stark naked, into the swift current, across which he struggled, with the water up to his shoulders, and after a short rest, he started, with a baby on one shoulder, and leading a string of three women, who joined hands, with the other, returned safely to the western bank. There was no affectation of modesty, and but little in reality. Some girls crossed on horseback, behind an Arab who guided the animal; donkeys, cows, and oxen went over without help, the donkeys only requiring a little fire in the rear to aid them into the stream. The boys swim, the girls stride the neck of some relative, and the grass is floated over in bundles from some distance above the ford. Beans, or kersenna, seemed to be the principal product, and peasants, who had crossed the river in the morning with their animals to cultivate their crops, returned at night, to avoid the prowling Arabs on the eastern side. The men were not generally armed, but there were some who seemed to act as sentinels at the ford. Doubtless all were border thieves, smugglers, receivers and forwarders of stolen goods. But I assumed that they were good men and true, and sat down with these ferrymen and ate their roasted beans around the brush fire they had kindled on the bank. Two of them returned with me to the tent, and as they lay in the grass stretched out before the tent-door, with several of the villagers, with the setting sun shining on their faces, they seemed like so many soulless brutes, without a single redeeming feature in their countenances. The human form only, dispelled the illusion. They made no salutation in coming or going, they showed no politeness and but little decency. This was the lowest form of Arab life I had ever seen. Rassoul Agha, with 300 men, was camped back on the hills, ostensibly to prevent smuggling, and 30 men were feeding their horses near us. An officer, who called himself Doud Aga, or Captain David, came to our tents to request us to move our camp higher up, near the soldiers on account of the danger at the ford, but we were clean and comfortable and decided to remain. At twilight, our military friend David, the Captain of a band of 30, called again, in a more ceremonious way, and after drinking our coffee, he politely offered us a guard for the night, and an escort to Gadara, on the morrow. We accepted the guard on the ground that it was not fair to hold the officer responsible without giving him a chance to preserve order and prevent trouble. We did not rely upon the soldiers, however, but kept "watch and watch" among our own people, who took good care to prevent a stampede of our animals. When all was still, I went out into the starlight to enjoy the river in its silent beauty. It did not sleep, but went swiftly on, unconscious of its history, and regardless of its destiny-although the sea of death was to be its grave, from which there could be no escape. The river was very pleasing to the eye in the changing light and shade of sunset and twilight, but I enjoyed it most, when the stars were reflected from its waters just before midnight, before the late moon rose to pour its sickly imitation of daylight upon the scene; and just before the dawn, when the muleteers, who had been singing to keep themselves awake, had sunk into sleep, and the soldiers lay wrapped in their cloaks, upon the grass, and the tents and the animals stood out against the horizon. Just these moments spent on the river bank will constitute my most precious souvenir of this river of all rivers, the most warmly cherished by the heart of Christendom, until a passage across that other river, of which this is a type, shall cause all the glories of earth to fade away in comparison with the wonders that shall be revealed on the other side. During the hours spent in my tent, between the bars of sleep I could hear the splashing of the Jordan. Were robbers fording the stream? Cattle swimming down the current explained the noise and relieved all apprehension, while it enhanced the peculiar interest which attached to the time and place. Mejonar at 8, where we stumbled upon a camp of about 400 Turkish troops. Like the irregulars at the ford, these troops were here to quell and keep back the Bedouins, whose ravages have caused this entire valley from Abadyieh to Jericho, nearly 60 miles, to be entirely deserted. Now fortune smiles! With an escort, we may perhaps spend some days on the other side of Jordan. We rose early on the morning of the el 22d, without suffering from the attacks of insects or of Arabs. At four o'clock, when the fading moonlight and the twinkling stars were retiring on the approach of dawn, the river and the hills on either side presented a picture of unusual interest. Getting off at 7 o'clock, after paying our sleepy protectors their expected backshish, we reached the bridge Jisyn GODFRIED AUGUST BÜRGER. BY A STUDENT OF GERMAN LITERATURE. AN old and beautiful tradition relates that a Southern tribe of Indians, defeated in war and driven from the graves and hunting-grounds of their fathers, came one day about sunset upon the banks of a noble river, where gleams of light, like the benedictions of a parting god, mingled with the gloom and shadow of the forest. The fight had been long and desperate, and even the hardiest warriors were beginning to feel the sinews of their limbs grow slack. Weary and faint, the chief threw down the knife and tomahawk, exclaiming, "Here we rest! here we rest!' How many a man has come like these hunted savages, to the shores of another broad river, come faint and weary from the heat and anguish of the battle of life, from fierce conflict with seen and unseen foes; to whom the very sunshine has been a mockery; has come to the River of Death, and cried out, "Here I rest! here I rest!" Such a man was the German poet Bürger. His whole life was a battle with adversity, and in death alone he found the peace he had always craved. Nor even death put an end to the dispute that raged during his lifetime in regard to his moral and literary character. For many years it was carried on with acrimony when it could no longer affect him. Nor will this seem surprising, when we consider his character. Wayward and erratic, like Burns and Poe, to both of whom he bears certain other resemblances, he perplexed all judgments for a time by an endless contradiction of good and evil qualities, through which it was impossible to discover any trace of a directing principle. Nor was it an easy task, while partisan feeling was warm on either side, to perceive justly in what relative proportions the good and evil in him were compounded, and while one party condemned his life and writings with undeserved severity, the other gave a measure of promise to both, which the sober judgment of after years has very materially reduced. But praise, blame, and pity have done their work; from every point of view his life and writings have been subjected to loving and unloving scrutiny, until both sides yielding somewhat here and there, a correct estimate of his character has been reached at length. And though revealing, alas! a saddening want of principle and everything like a firm purpose, or a noble end to be reached, there is enough remaining of generous and endearing qualities to give interest to the story of his life. It has also its touching and stern admonitions, voices of warning from the depths of tragic experience, sad appealings to human charity. And it seems to me that a half hour might not be lost in plucking some of the flowers of life and death, of sweet and of bitter odor, which grow out of his grave. Godfried August Bürger was born on New-Year's day, 1748, at Wolmerswende, in the principality of Halberstadt. His father was a clergyman, of a sluggish and indolent disposition, while his mother was noted for energy and intellect. Young Bürger, unfortunately, inherited the qualities of both parents in proportions that insured him a lifetime of misery. With the old gentleman's wishes, however unmore of the father's temperament he wise and contrary to the promptings of would have gone through the world a his own nature. He made up for the free and easy lounger, taking things as sacrifice, however, by neglecting the unthey came without care or thought for congenial and dry study, and applying the morrow; with somewhat more of the himself vigorously in other directions. fine qualities and decision of his mother, Casting off, by a strong effort of will, his he might have risen above the degrading indolent, dreamy habits, he became a dilitendency of his lower nature, with the gent student of æsthetics and ancient and impulse and the power to throw himself modern poetry. Warmhearted and cormanfully into the whirl of life and action. dial in the main, though not unfrequently But from boyhood he was indolent and irritable and self-willed, he was just the wayward, and with a fair capacity for one to attract the goodfellowship which the acquisition of knowledge refused to he had done well to avoid. His most inapply himself to study. Parental urging, timate companion at Halle was a certain the more practical argument of the rod, counsellor Klotze, a man of fine culture but failed to stimulate the flagging disposi- of loose morals, by whom he was introtion, and at the age of ten he could scarce- duced to a circle of convivial spirits, in ly even read. He would play the truant whose company he received irreparable for whole days, sometimes late into the moral injury. It may be doubted if his night, in the thickest part of a somewhat studies at this time were in any sense the lonesome wood in the neighborhood, seeds of a refined and noble culture, for pleasing himself with the sombre fancies the degradation of the moral impulses of inspired by the genius of the place. It a man inevitably lowers the tone of his was no healthy love of nature that led intellect. Bürger took the downward the young truant into those deep shad- road on the run, and soon became noted ows; he loved the seclusion and twilight as the wildest of the wild. Hearing at gloom, and the sense of superstitious length how matters were going on, his mystery breathed from the murmur of the grandfather recalled him in no very graleaves; an ominous characteristic! Bür- cious mood. ger was never a child of light. At the age of twelve we find him living with his grandfather at Aschersleben, and attending the lyceum of that city. Though making but little progress in his studies, he showed no lack of mother-wit and a strong inclination to poetry, which generally took the form of epigrams against schoolmates who offended him. But a keen satire on the extra sized bag-wig or a self-important senior, which caused no little merriment among the other scholars, brought upon him so unmerciful a beating from the incensed victim, that his grandfather withdrew him from the lyceum, and sent him to study theology at Halle. Had Bürger been left to his own choice he would have devoted himself entirely to literary culture, towards which he was drawn by inclination and turn of mind; but dependent on the grandfather's purse for support, he had not the nerve to oppose Finding means to pacify the justly incensed old gentleman, Bürger was sent to make another trial of life as a law student at Göttingen. For a few months every thing went well. He applied himself earnestly and assiduously to his stu-. dies, with satisfactory progress. But, falling once more into the society of genial, convivial fellows, his old tastes and habits came back upon him with a force which his new character was unable to resist. It was the old story over again— temptation, an impotent struggle, and another fall into licentiousness and extravagance. His grandfather, soon apprised of it, and as the only means of bringing the graceless fellow to his senses, withdrew his supplies, and threw him upon his own resources. Deeply in debt, and a prey to the severest chidings of conscience, Bürger was almost beside himself with remorse and desperation. But this seemingly adverse stroke of fortune was ordered by his good genius, for the purpose of rousing him out of his deathful sleep in the bowers of false delight. The change it wrought was indeed marvelous. He once more, and forever, shook loose from his licentions companions, again studied diligently, and by giving private instruction earned the means of support, and the noble feeling of independence and manly selfrespect. At this time, fortunately for himself and for us, he fell in with a company of choice spirits, who did for German literature what the pre-Raphaelites are doing in our own day for English art. Herder and Klopstock had already burst the shackles which French philosophy had riveted to the limbs of an awakening nation, and given a living, healthful impulse to the literature of their native land. It was the ambition of the Göttingen Society to keep up the influence and carry out the purposes of those great leaders. They were all young men, thoroughly alive with the spirit of the new times, conscious of strength and exultant in the hope of a glorious victory. For, though great names, and the authority of venerable forms and old traditionary feeling were against the new order of things, it required no very keen discernment to see that the whole nation was stirring and growing restless with the fresh blood in its veins. Men were beginning to assert the right of individual opinion, of free thought and action. All the living intellect of the nation was aroused to tear aside the mummery of an exhausted and soulless formality from laws, literature, and religion. And hence that remarkable crisis in the history of Germany, of which the circles and eddies reach down to our own day. Though pursuing diverging paths, and ultimately far apart, the members of the Göttingen Society made their influence widely felt in the new movement, and their names are still remembered with gratitude. Bürger was soon a favorite with all the members. His poems were read aloud at their weekly meetings, where they received the benefit of un sparing criticism, which he always took in good part. He was accustomed to write impulsively, and to correct, alter, and add with critical deliberation; and what he left undone was finished by his friends. It is said that the completed poem would sometimes contain not so much as a line of the first draught. How he could preserve so much spirit, and such a forceful rush of style and rhythm, in spite of the cool and patient emendation, is certainly a matter of wonder. These were the happiest days of Bürger's life. Poor in purse, he was rich in the nobler wealth of a good conscience, a spirit well employed, and the hope of a high and enduring fame in the literature of his native country. But these palmy days were of short duration. Careless and always improvident, he had contracted many debts in Göttingen, which he had no means, nor the prospect of any, to pay off. It was plain that he must quit the jovial and literary society of Göttingen for the stern and practical ways of life. The good offices of his friend Boie obtained for him a stewardship on the manor of Alten Gleichen, under the Lords of Uslar. The salary, though small enough, would have sufficed, with prudence and economy, which poor Bürger did not possess, to keep him from want; and his grandfather, finding him ready to help himself in an honorable calling, generously provided him with the means of paying his debts. Unfortunately, in the absence of his faithful adviser Boie, this money was intrusted to a young scapegrace of a student, and by him soon squandered. He was unable to replace it; and this flagrant breach of trust involved Bürger in a snare of pecuniary difficulties from which he escaped only when he laid his head in the grave. From the solitariness and ennui of his secluded country home, Bürger sought refuge in the companionship of the muses. Here he wrote Lenore, the best of his poems, which has won him a world-wide celebrity. The wildness of the legend, and the extraordinary force and forward rush of the rhythm, the strength and vi |