"O! un Birbanti! un Ladroni !" was the charitable reply; and the man who answered, forthwith launched into a tale of ills and wrongs, practised and suffered by the person in question, stopping at every other word to find some appropriate invective to give due force to his

censures.

cup

I was in the innocent enjoyment of a veritable of Mocha coffee and the fumes of real Sheraz Timbac (a weed resembling tobacco, which is only smoked in the Narghili or Hooka), when, to my great amusement, I perceived that the conversation having been worn to a shred, the attention of these heterogeneous pilgrims was directed towards no less a personage than my humble self. They wondered who I was, and why I had come at this unseasonable time of the year. Was I a General or a Consul-General? a gentleman or a Goth? a merchant or a swindler? Mine host had evidently, in the exuberance of his spirits at having picked up a customer when least expected, officially announced from the back door of the hotel that he did not exactly know who I was; but that if I were not an important

public officer, I must be the son or brother of one, or some great incognito travelling for political purposes. Nor was this difficult of belief, as it is a common opinion that every man calling himself an Englishman must be a kind of locomotive mint or bank, on which innkeepers, in common with Jews and shopkeepers, are in duty bound to draw as largely as their bankrupt consciences will permit. My neighbours were in a state verging on distraction to discover my true character; and they, I am certain, would have cheerfully given a shilling a head only just to get a sight of me for a minute. What is he like? has no one seen him? is he tall or short, thin or stout? To these various questions a libelling old Jew who was passing in the street took upon himself to reply.

66

Mashalla," said he, "I never saw a bigger man in my life: two camels could hardly support the weight of the Tartarawan which brought him here," a description to which I could lay no claim.

To continue to be such an object of discussion among a set of people who varied so vastly in their opinions except in one point, viz., that of

deciding that if I were not this or that, I must be an impostor, became at length anything but agreeable, and I retreated to bed. The last words I heard as I turned on my pillow, and dozed off, were "Chi diabilo e questo voiegitoro, si non e uno diplomato deve esser un birbante."

CHAPTER VII.

THE RELICS OF JERUSALEM.

The Temple of Solomon-The Holy Sepulchre-Armenian superstition-Celestial fire-Priestly imposition-Pilate's Judgment Hall-Greek women-Story of a treacherous husband-Protestant Cathedral-The English ConsulThe Dead Sea, Jordan, and Bethlehem Advice to travellers.

ALL will remember that descriptive passage in the first Book of Kings: "And the house which King Solomon built for the Lord, the length thereof was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits.... And the cedar of the house within was carved, with kuofs and open flowers; all was cedar; there was no stone

seen.... And the oracle in the forepart was twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in breadth, and twenty cubits in the height thereof: and he overlaid it with pure gold; and so covered the altar which was of cedar.... And the whole house he overlaid with gold until he had finished all the house."

Such was the magnificence of the Temple of Solomon, which must have almost rivalled in Oriental splendour the ideal palaces so often alluded to in the marvellous tales of the Thousand and One Nights. Alas! not only does no vestige of this unequalled structure remain, but the cunning and skilful workmen of those days-the masons that came from Tyre at King Hiram's command, the architects, the builders, the carvers in cedar and other woods, the workers in beautifully wrought gold and silver, might vainly be sought for amongst the degenerate artizans. of Syria and Palestine. I found it a difficult task, nay, an utter impossibility, to reconcile to my mind the astounding fact, that the very ordinary commonplace looking Turkish town, filled with soldiers and Jews, Arabs and Greeks, Armenians and Syrians, and merchants, shopkeepers and shorn