HISTORY.

FROM the earliest ages of authentic history, Palestine (with whose ancient and sacred history every reader is familiar) has been the object of curiosity at once ardent and enlightened. Since the time that Abraham crossed the Euphrates (3780 years ago) a solitary traveler, down to the recent massacres in that unhappy country, Syria has been looked upon with greater attention, and described with greater accuracy and minuteness, than any other portions of the ancient world. There are authors of reputation who state that they have read over two hundred different works, and still knew nothing about it until they had seen it. It would be at variance with the original design of this work to give a description of the natural feelings of the traveler, as experienced by the author in seeing the land of the Patriarchs for the first time, when there are so many descriptions to which he can refer; he will only say here that for many years it had been his great desire to see the land where lived Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph; to see the city conquered by David and enriched by Solomon; to see the spot on which our Savior gave up the ghost to redeem mankind, and where, on the same spot, the godlike Godfrey de Bouillon, 1088 years later, planted the standard of the Cross, and rescued the Holy City from Mohammedan rule after a possession of 460 years.

HISTORY.

of Reuben immediately east of the Dead Sea, Gad north of that, Manasseh north of that, immediately east of the Sea of Galilee, and from these three tribes are sprung the present wild and wandering tribes of Bedouins.

The length of Palestine from Dan to Beersheba is about 180 miles. In Pales tine, as in Greece, every traveler is struck with the smallness of the territory; but, like that once powerful country, events have made it large; and limited as was its territory, it is quite certain that its fertility was very great—so actually marvelous that it supported not merely in comfort, but in good opulence, a population infinitely more numerous than any other territory of like extent ever supported either in ancient or in modern times. Even in the times of Moses the fighting men numbered above half a million, which, according to the usual manner of estimating the whole population by the number of its fighting men, would give over 2,500,000 souls. We have also the authority of Josephus, who states that in the time of Titus the little province of Galilee alone furnished 100,000 fighting men. Of the present population there is great diversity of opinion. M'Culloch, quoting from Bowring's Report of Syria, says it contains 175,000 Jews, and Mr. Porter, a resident of Damascus for five years, gives the number of native Jews of Syria at 15,000; and those who have come from every country on the globe to visit the graves of their fathers and lay their dust by their side, and who are residents of the four holy cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias, and Safet, amount in all to

Turks. The last are the rulers of the country, every person occupying any government position in Syria being a Turk.

The following works may be read with great interest on Syria and Palestine: Prime's "Tent-life in the Holy Land ;" Thompson's "The Land and the Book;" Robinson's "Researches ;" Burckhardt's "Travels in Syria;" and Murray's "Handbook of Syria and Palestine." We have made copious extracts of descriptions from Prof. Hughes' "Treasury of Geography,' a work of unusual accuracy, which our own vision has confirmed.

Although anciently the possessions of the Israelites were confined within comparatively narrow limits, it must be borne in mind that those limits were frequently and greatly extended by war and conquest. In the time of Solomon, for instance, the extent of his kingdom was very great, including a great portion of Syria-it must be remembered Palestine, or the Holy Land, is only a portion of the territory of Syria-and stretched in the northeasterly direction as far as the River Euphrates.

Of the vastness of the wealth of the Jews in the time of Solomon no more striking evidence can be required than is afforded by the details which are given in the First Book of Kings of the enormous outlay bestowed by him upon the Temple and other buildings.

In the year 721 the kingdom of Israel was overrun by the Assyrians, and Judah in its turn was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar. The Chaldeans, the Medes, and Persians ruled over this once fertile and populous expanse of country until they were in turn invaded and conquered by Alexander the Great. In the division of the vast territories which that brilliant conqueror brought under his single rule, Judah fell under the dominion of the kings of Syria, and remained subject to the Syrians or Egyptians until 130 B.C., when John Hyrcanus successfully revolted against the Syrians, and assumed the crown of king and pontiff alike. This double power, royal and ecclesiastical, remained in the Asmonean dynasty until Antony gave the kingdom to Herod the Great, a prince of an Idumean family.

To a people so intensely national as the Jews, this subjection to a foreign ruler who differed so widely from them in relig

ion, and who despised them, and was detested by them in return, could not but be irksome to them. The consequence was they were continually revolting.

But the Roman power was too vast, and its policy too inflexible to be successfully resisted by a people so depressed as the Jewish people even then were.

Irritated by frequent revolts of subjects whom they so much despised, the Romans at length, under Vespasian, determined to inflict upon the Jews a chastisement so severe as finally to crush them; and after a long and terrible siege, in which it is said by Josephus no fewer than 1,100,000 were killed, and 100,000 taken prisoners, it was taken by Vespasian's son Titus in the year 71 A.D. The Temple and all the principal edifices were destroyed, and the whole city so completely desolated. that from that period until the time of the Emperor Hadrian it was inhabited only by a mere handful of the poorest Jews. Hadrian restored many of its buildings, planted a colony there, and erected temples to Venus and Jupiter.

The country was next overrun by the Saracens under Omar in the year 636, and remained subject to them for 400 years. It then fell into the hands of the Turks, who proved still more oppressive masters than any of their predecessors.

The description of the wrongs inflicted on both Jew and Christian given by pilgrims on their return aroused a feeling of indignation alike in the priesthood and in the chivalry of Europe, and led to the well-known Crusades, or Holy Wars, the result of which, at the close of the 11th century, was the taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, and the forming of the Latin kingdom under Godfrey de Bouillon and his successors. Circumscribed in extent, the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem was never for an instant safe from the attacks of the fierce warriors of the Crescent; and the whole term of its existence (from 1099 to 1187) may be said to be one long alternation of hollow and brief truce, and of sanguinary and obstinate battle between the Christian and the Saracen.

The accomplished, and, in many partic ulars, chivalric and admirable Saladin, at length conquered Judea in 1187; and the various disturbances and changes of which it was the scene after the breaking up of