PREFACE.

THE Author of the following pages having spent one winter in Italy for the recovery of his health, was advised to pass another in the East. He left London on the 17th of October, 1849, taking the route through Germany to Trieste, and after visiting Venice, Athens, Smyrna, and Alexandria, arrived on the 22d of December in Cairo. He then went up the Nile as far as Thebes. Owing to the fogs on the river, he did not reap the benefit from the sail up the Nile which he was led to expect. He would recommend persons labouring under affections of the throat and chest, instead of the "Nile Boat," to spend three or four weeks at Mount Sinai, ascending the hills in that wild and wonderful region, and wandering about the shores of the Red Sea. On the 28th of February, 1850, after experiencing from the learned and reverend Mr. Lieder, and his amiable and accom

plished wife, a kindness which he can never forget, he left Cairo for the Desert; and, after spending a few days at Mount Sinai and Petra, reached Jerusalem on the 8th of April, having been on the way and in the wilderness thirtynine days. The following pages are literally what they profess to be, and are published with no view to literary notice, to which, indeed, they have no title, but for the gratification of the young people of his congregation, to whom they are inscribed, and to increase their affection for a land which no one can pass through without having new ideas awakened in his mind, and new emotions in his heart, and which no one has passed through once without desiring to pass through, and to gaze upon its faded and melancholy but still beautiful aspect, again.

Helensburgh, Nov. 16th, 1850.

ADRIATIC,

December 6th, 1849.

SEEKING A SOUTH LAND.

And

"And she said unto him, Give me a blessing: for thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. Caleb gave her the upper springs and the nether springs."— Judges, i. 15.

A WRECK upon the waters once again!

Lone cast upon the melancholy main,

To foreign lands, where balmy breezes blow,

A pilgrim sad in search of health I go.

Like a poor merchantman who heretofore

Has ventures made in vain, but makes one more,

So I, with sad remembrance of the past,

Go forth to make one more, and that the last.
Dark were thy skies, O Mediterranean Sea!
And wild thy waves, when first I sailed on thee.
Now fast and far to cloudless lands I go,

And all is bright above, and calm below.
A "sea-change" thine- comes often such to thee.
Would I could hope a change like thine for me!
But vain the wish-life has, like death, its urn,
Whose darken'd ashes ne'er to light return.

B

The true South land where Hope's sweet visions rise
Spreads not on earth beneath its brightest skies,
And never shone on sea or shore most fair

The light that shines, and shines for ever there—
Disease and death to heal, and all their woe.
The "upper and the nether springs" there flow;
The wandering and the weary there find rest,
And at the source of blessedness are blest.
As seeks the weary bird its resting-tree,
As restless rolls the river to the sea,

Seeking no more " the better land ” below,—
Thither, O thither, now my spirit go!

THEBES,

EGYPT.

February 3d, 1850.

I. THE BURDEN.

"It shall be the basest of the kingdoms."-Ezek. xxix. 15.

"THE soil of Egypt," the Egyptians were accustomed to say, "for three months in the year is white and sparkling, like pearl; for three it is green, like emerald; and for three it is yellow, like amber." Such was its fertility, it was regarded as the "Granary of the World." It was not the sons of Israel only that went down to Egypt to buy corn. The fairest and most fertile, it was the greatest of kingdoms. Such was its greatness, it was made in the place of God "the confidence of the ends of the earth, and of them that were afar off upon the sea." The nations are represented as sitting under its shadow, making it their strength and stay, and looking up to the Egyptians "as if they were gods, and not men." This did not only the heathen, but the Israelites themselves. Hence the warnings of the