that all their expense is lavished. Here my courteous host has appointed my lodging: beautiful curtains, and mats and cushions to the divan, display the respect with which they mean to receive their guest. Here, likewise, their splendour, being at the top of the house, is enjoyed by the poor Greeks with more retirement, and less chance of molestation from the intrusion of Turks; here, when the professors of the college waited upon me to pay their respects, they were received in ceremony, and sat at the window. The room is both higher and also larger than those below; it has two projecting windows, and the whole floor is much extended in front, beyond the lower part of the building, that the projecting windows con

siderably overhang the street. In such an upper room, secluded, spacious, and commodious, St. Paul was invited to preach his parting discourse. The divan, or raised seat, with mats or cushions, encircles the interior of each projecting window; and I have remarked, that, when the company is numerous, they sometimes place large cushions behind the company seated on the divan, so that a second tier of company, with their feet on the seat of the divan, are sitting behind, higher than the front row. Eutychus, thus sitting, would be on a level with the open window, and being overcome with sleep, he would easily fall out from the third loft of the house into the street, and be almost certain, from such a height, to lose his life. Thither St. Paul went down, and comforted the alarmed company by bringing up Eutychus alive. It

is noted, that there were many lights in the upper chamber. The very great plenty of oil in this neighbourhood would enable them to afford many lamps; the heat of these, and so much company, would cause the drowsiness of Eutychus at that late hour, and be the occasion likewise of the windows being open."

We now give the concluding paragraph of Dr. Shaw's description. "This method of building," he adds, "may further assist us in accounting for the particular structure of the temple or house of Dagon, Judg. xvi., and the great number of people that were buried in the ruins of it by pulling down the two principal pillars that supported it. We read, verse 27, that about three thousand persons were upon the roof, to behold while Samson made sport, namely, to the scoffing and deriding Philistines. Samson, therefore, must have been in a court or area below, and consequently the temple will be of the same kind with the ancient temene or sacred inclosures, which were only surrounded either in part or on all sides with some plain or cloistered buildings. Several palaces and dou-wânas, as the courts of justice are called in these countries, are built in this fashion, where, upon their public rejoicings, a great quantity of sand is strewed upon the area for the pellowans or wrestlers to fall upon; whilst the roofs of these cloisters are crowded with spectators to admire their strength and activity. I have often seen numbers of people diverted in this manner upon the roof of the Dey's palace at Algiers; which, like many more of the same quality and

denomination, has an advanced cloister over against the gate of the palace, Esth. v. 1, made in the fashion of a large pent-house, supported only by one or two contiguous pillars in the front or else in the centre. In such open structures as these, the bashaws, kadees, and other great officers, distribute justice and transact the public affairs of their provinces. Here likewise they have their public entertainments, as the lords and others of the Philistines had in the house of Dagon. Upon a supposition, therefore, that in the house of Dagon there was a cloistered building of this kind, the pulling down the front or centre pillars, which supported it, would be attended with the like catastrophe that happened to the Philistines."

An illustration of the material which was employed in the erection of ancient oriental houses may be gathered from what D'Arvieux remarks of Alexandria in Egypt. "The city gates, which are still standing, have a magnificent appearance, and are so high and broad, that we may infer from them the ancient greatness and splendour of the place. They properly consist only of four square stones; one of which serves as the threshold, two are raised on the sides, and the fourth laid across and resting upon them. I need not say that they are of great antiquity; for it is well known, that, for many centuries past, such immense stones have not been used in building. It is a matter of surprise how the ancients could raise such heavy masses from the stone quarries, remove them, and set them up. Some are of opinion that these stones were

cast, and probably consisted only of a heap of small stones, which were united by the finest cement; that at the place where they were wanted, wooden models or moulds were made, in which the cement and stones were mixed together, and when this mass became dry and sufficiently firm, the mould was taken off by degrees, and the stones then polished."

In 1 Kings iv. 25, we read of every man sitting "under his vine and under his fig tree." Now though this is nothing more than a beautiful figurative expression, denoting great peace and prosperity, yet it implies that the Hebrews were in the habit of planting trees and training vines on the walls of their houses. And with reference to the fig tree, the open quadrangle into which all the apartments of an oriental house open, has generally one or more such trees in the centre. Vine trees are certainly not commonly trained now in the East, yet sometimes a vine is trained against one of the sides of the quadrangle ; and the coffee houses are frequently protected by vine. trees planted beside the passage, and trained across upon a trellis supported by beams. Under this shade, it has been observed, the Turk will sit smoking his pipe and sipping his coffee for hours, the very image of comfort and satisfaction.

HOUSES OF CLAY.

It has been conjectured by Pliny, that the Orientals took the first idea of constructing houses from the swallow; and that, in imitation of their feathered

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instructor, they made their first attempt with mud. Be this as it may, we gather from Scripture that houses were at the earliest period constructed of that material. Thus Job, in a beautiful figure which answers to "The soul's dark cottage" of one of our own poets, alludes to such frail buildings, Job iv. 19; and again, in ch. xxiv. 16, he describes evil designed persons as digging "through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the daytime:" which is particularly expressive, if we suppose that the reference is made to houses the thick walls of which were mud: see the engraving on page 243. Such houses are now common in the East. The dwellings, indeed, of the mass of the humbler class of the population throughout Asia are, as they always have been, constructed with clay or mud. They have been described as comprehending three principal sorts: 1, A framework of hurdles or wicker daubed thickly with mud; 2, The walls composed of successive layers of trodden mud or clay; and, 3, Built with sun-dried bricks, that is, cakes of trodden clay or mud, fashioned in a mould and dried in the sun.

Through these mud walls it is no uncommon thing for thieves to dig. Hence we see the propriety of the allusion made in the book of Job, to men's digging through them; and the language of our Lord which occurs in his sermon on the Mount, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,

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