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rear of the party, to see that no person loitered, and that none of the inhabitants might be permitted to touch us, or our. horses and camels, on any account whatsoever. In this manner we passed entirely through the town, which we found almost deserted by the inhabitants, who, having fled the contagion, were seen stationed in tents over all the neighbouring hills. It appeared to be a larger place than we expected to find: the houses are all white and have flat roofs, as at Jerusalem, and in other parts of the country. We reached the great gate of the convent of the nativity without further accident; but did not choose to venture in, both on account of the danger, and the certainty of beholding over again much of the same sort of mummery which had so frequently put our patience to the proof in Jerusalem. Passing close to its walls, we took our course down into the deep valley which lies upon its north-eastern side; visiting the place where tradition says the angel, with a multitude of the heavenly host, appeared to the shepherds of Judea, with the glad tidings of our Saviour's nativity; and, finally, halting in an olive plantation at the bottom of the valley below the convent and the town.'

David's well, from which the three mighty men drew water, after breaking through the host of the Philistines, and the cave of the nativity, are still easily recognized. Our travellers passed on to Jaffa, which is distant from Jerusalem about forty miles. They narrowly escaped assassination on the road from the Arabs.

'Jaffa,' says he, appeared to be almost in as forlorn a state as Rama; the air itself was still infected with the smell of unburied bodies. We went to the house of the English consul, whose grey hairs had not exempted him from French extortion. He had just ventured to hoist again the British flag upon the roof of his dwelling; and he told us, with tears in his eyes, that it was the only proof of welcome he could offer to us, as the French officers, under Bonaparte, had stripped him of every thing he possessed. However, in the midst of all his complaints against the French, not a single syllable ever escaped his lips respecting the enormities supVOL. IV.(71) 2 I

posed to be committed, by means of Bonaparte's orders or connivance, in the town and neighbourhood of Jaffa. there are so many living witnesses to attest the truth of this representation, and the character of no ordinary individual is so much implicated in its result, the utmost attention will be here paid to every particular likely to illustrate the fact; and for this especial reason, because that individual is our enemy. At the time we were in Jaffa, so soon after the supposed transactions are said to have occurred, the indignation of our consul, and of the inhabitants in general, against the French, were of so deep a nature, that there is nothing they would not have said, to vilify Bonaparte, or his officers: but this accusation they never even hinted. Nor is this all. Upon the evening of our arrival at Jaffa, walking with captain Culverhouse along the shore to the south of the town, in order to join some of our party who were gone in search of plants and shells, a powerful and most offensive smell, as from dead bodies, which we had before experienced more than once, in approaching the town, caused us to hesitate whether we should proceed or return. At this moment the author observed the remains of bodies in the sand; and captain Culverhouse, being in doubt whether they belonged to human bodies or to those of cattle, removed a part of the sand with his sword, and uncovered part of a hand and arm. Upon this, calling to our friends, we told them what we had discovered; and returning to the consul's house, asked him the cause of the revolting spectacle we had witnessed. He told us, that these were the remains of bodies carried thither, during the late plague, for interment; but that the sea, frequently removing the sand which covered them, caused them to be thus exposed; and he cautioned us in future against walking that way, as the infection might possibly be retained, not only by those bodies, but by the clothes, and other things, there deposited.

'Joppa, called also Japha, and now universally Jaffa, owes all the circumstances of its celebrity, as the principal port of Judea, to its situation with regard to Jerusalem. As a station for vessels, its harbour is one of the worst in the Mediterranean. Ships generally anchor about a mile from the town, to

avoid the shoals and rocks of the place. In ancient times it was the only place resorted to as a sea-port in all Judea. Hither Solomon ordered the materials for the temple to be brought from Mount Libanus, previous to their conveyance by land to Jerusalem. A tradition is preserved, that here Noah lived and built his ark. Pliny describes it as older than the deluge. Some authors ascribe the origin of Jaffa to Japhet, son of Noah, and thence derive its name. However fabulous such accounts may be now deemed, they afford proof of the great antiquity of the place; having been recorded by historians, for so many ages, as the only traditions extant concerning its origin. Jaffa is also celebrated as the port whence the prophet Jonas embarked for Nineveh. Here also St. Peter restored Tabitha to life. In the time of St. Jerome it was called Japho.'

At this ancient place, our travellers embarked in a boat laden with fruit for Acre, where they soon arrived, highly gratified with their very interesting excursion.

A

TOUR IN SWITZERLAND,

BY

HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS.

THE amiable authoress of this interesting work, has traced, with all the rapidity and ardour of a fond imagination, and with the most sublime enthusiasm, those scenes of majestic grandeur which Switzerland presents. She also detailed the moral and political situation of the inhabitants during the time of her visit: but we shall confine ourselves principally to a description of those grand, permanent, and enchanting objects of nature, which withstand the shocks of time, and the revolution of empires. It shall be our business to seize the vivid colouring in which our fair enthusiast has clothed her emotions of admiration.

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Being compelled to fly from Paris, to avoid the cruel tyranny of Robespierre, she proceeded straight to Switzerland. In travelling along the canton of Basil, she exclaims, What beautiful, what various combinations of rock, pine-clad hills thrown together in noble masses, and richly covered with their darktinted verdure; above which a bare peak sometimes lifts its sharp spiral head, as if to give effect to the landscape.

'What grateful sound to my ear were the murmurs of those soothing cascades, and clear rills which had more of beauty than sublimity, but which filled my heart with emotion, while I considered them as the prelude of scenes, where the water-fall swells

into a torrent, and where, instead of rapid brooks, and small streams, the broad lake spreads its majestic expanse of waters.

'I was yet only in the vestibule of Switzerland, and nature appeared to me as if lifting up gradually the veil which concealed those mighty objects of overwhelming grandeur, which my imagination sprung forward to meet with enthusiastic rapture. We passed by several country houses, with pleasuregrounds covered with verdant seats, bowers, and arbours, profanely cut into all the mishapen forms of Gothic fury.

Many a traditionary tale gives a moral interest to the picturesque scenes of this enchanting country. In one of our airings on horseback, during our stay at a farm-house, we passed through a defile, above which rose piles of cliffs five hundred feet high, and on the brow of one of those towering crags we discerned the ruins of a Gothic castle, two windows of which still remain. "There," said our guide, pointing to the frowning summit of the rock, "some ages past lived a tyrant: he delighted in desolation and death, and whenever any of his vassals offended him, he ordered them to appear before him, and then caused the unhappy victims to be thrown headlong from yonder horrible precipice into this gulph below. Three centuries since his vassals had their revenge; they armed themselves, climbed up at night by almost inaccessible paths to the castle, which they surprized, and set on fire, and the tyrant perished in the flames."

Having arrived at Zuric, she was received by the French ambassador with elegant hospitality. This neat and cheerful town,' says she, is divided into two parts by the Limat, and delightfully situated on the northern extremity of its noble lake, which spreads far as the eye can reach, its mass of limpid waters, bounded by vine-covered hills, whose slopes are thick studded with houses and villages; while beyond this scene of picturesque beauty, the Alps, covered with their eternal snows, rise in the distant perspective, stretching towards the south-west, and mingling their summits with the clouds. It was not without the most powerful emotion that, for the first time, I cast my eyes on that solemn, that majestic vision, the Alps!--how often had the idea of those stupendous

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