PATHWAYS

AND

ABIDING-PLACES OF OUR LORD.

JOURNEY FROM EGYPT TO THE HOLY LAND.

Cairo.

CAMP IN THE DESERT, March 24, 1849.

HERE, in the midst of the wilderness of Shur, and on the fourth night of our living in tents, I begin a letter to you, to be finished on the way, and sent from Jerusalem, if we do not meet with an earlier opportunity. The previous evenings of our journey since leaving Cairo, I have been so fatigued with camel-riding, that I have been glad to lie down to sleep as soon as our tent was pitched and supper over. I wrote to you last from Cairo, telling you of our successful voyage on the Nile, our visit to Thebes, and of the deep interest with which we should now turn our faces toward the Holy Land, as soon as we heard that you were all well and comfortable at Rome. This cheering intelligence

B

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PREPARATIONS FOR SETTING OUT.

your last letters gave us, and we then in good earnest made our preparations to reach what was, after all, the chief object of interest to us in our Eastern pilgrimage. We procured our tents, leather water-bottles, casks, provisions, and all the other equipage needful for our desert life; and having engaged our camels and dromedaries, we saw them loaded and sent before us on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 20th, to the distance of some ten or twelve miles, there to encamp for the night. This precaution is taken in order that, if anything material should have been overlooked, the discovery may be made, and a messenger sent back to the city to procure it; because when once beyond the reach of Cairo, and fairly on the desert, the traveller must depend for the comforts, and even the necessaries for his journey, upon what his forecast has provided, with the exception of the precarious supply of a few articles of food, which he may obtain from some poor and scattered villages, or from a tribe of wandering Arabs.

We now bade farewell to the friends to whom we had been indebted for constant attention and many acts of kindness: To Dr. Abbott, whom we had seen almost daily, and whose most valuable and interesting collection of Egyptian antiquities had been thrown open to us at all times. This, if not the largest in the world, is, I suspect, the most various, and contains more unique curiosities than

any other, and would be well worth transferring to some public institution of our country. To Mr. Murray, the British consul-general, who formerly travelled in the United States, and left there a very favourable impression, and who has published a very graphic description of his visit to our western prairies: To the American consul-general, Mr. Macauley, at whose official introduction to Abbas Pasha we had been present by his invitation: To the Rev. Mr. Lieder, the missionary of the Church of England Society, so long and favourably known for his faithful and efficient labours; and to his excellent wife, who, having travelled the route we were about to take, most kindly and thoughtfully wrote out for us brief hints and directions.

On Wednesday morning we mounted our donkeys, and made our way along the crooked streets of the city, most of them so narrow, that two persons passing on horseback would leave hardly room for a third on foot, and through a lively, motley crowd of turbaned men and veiled women on foot and on donkeys, with strings of loaded camels stalking along and threatening to squeeze us to the walls, and hundreds of mangy dogs running about or lying asleep in our very path, our attendants calling out all the time, to put us on our guard or to clear the way, "riglak," thy foot; "yemenak," to thy right; "shimalak," to thy left. We went out by the beautiful gateway Bab e' Nusr, or Gate of

Victory, over which there is an inscription, said to be in the Cufic language, which is translated, "There is no God but God; Mohammed is the Apostle of God, and Ali the friend of God. May the Divine favour be on both." After a pleasant ride of about two hours over a level and fertile country, we came to Mataréëh, anciently known as Heliopolis, and in Scripture as On in the Book of Genesis, and in the prophet Jeremiah, Bethshemesh, or the City of the Sun. But just before arriving there, we turned aside a short distance through an enclosed field and garden, to see the place where, according to the traditions of the oriental Christians, the Holy Family on one occasion rested, when Joseph arose and took the young child and his mother by night and departed into Egypt." Here is a well of water, said to have been salt originally, but which became fresh when the blessed Virgin needed to drink from it, and has continued so ever since; we certainly drew from it a very grateful draught after our long ride.

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Near to the well, we were pointed to a sycamore tree of a very peculiar shape. It is not high or round, but of great width, as if a stunted tree of enormous girth had been pressed out laterally, or as if several of such trees springing up side by side had grown together, leaving recesses like rough niches in a wall of solid wood, with a few gnarled branches growing out above. This tree,

FOUNTAIN OF THE VIRGIN.

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according to monkish tradition, opened itself to give shelter to the infant Saviour. Whether or not the tradition is founded on fact, we need not stop to inquire. That the tree, as it now stands, is of very great age, there can be no manner of doubt; and that its roots may have borne previous growths, one of which might have been flourishing when the Holy Family came down into Egypt, and might have sheltered them beneath its branches, and thus given rise to the legend, is by no means impossible. At any rate, I looked at it, sat beneath it, and meditated upon the incident associated with it, if not in a state of undoubting faith, with no unwillingness to enjoy any pleasing associations which fancy might awaken in connection with the hallowed associations of the Eastern lands where once the feet of the Redeemer trod. And thus I mean to receive all traditions connected with sacred places in the land whither I am going. When no obvious improbability or credulous superstition obliges a rational mind to reject them, I shall suffer them to draw the imagination, to direct the train of reflections, and, as I trust, to warm and encourage the devout affections.

But this story, which would account for the sweetening of the brackish water of the "Fountain of the Sun," as it was once called, but now "of the Virgin," it is scarcely necessary to say I have no faith in. At this distance from the Nile, its