SKETCHES OF PALESTINE. 363 



lest he should be robbed of his hard earnings by the rapacious 

 soldier. Aside, in a corner, the Arab butcher is slaughtering 

 some animal, suspended by the legs from a wall in ruins : from 

 his haggard and ferocious look, and his bloody hands, you would 

 suppose that he had been cutting the throat of a fellow-creature, 

 rather than killing a lamb. The only noise heard from time to 

 time in the city, is the galloping of the steed of the desert : it is the 

 janissary who brings the head of the Bedouin, or who returns from 

 plundering the unhappy Fellah. 



* Amid this extraordinary desolation, you must pause a moment 

 to contemplate two circumstances still more extraordinary. 

 Among the ruins of Jerusalem, two classes of independent people 

 find in their religion sufficient fortitude to enable them to surmount 

 such complicated horrors and wretchedness. Here reside commu- 

 nities of Christian monks, whom nothing can compel to forsake 

 the tomb of Christ ; neither plunder nor personal ill-treatment, nor 

 menaces of death itself. Night and day they chaunt their hymns 

 around the Holy Sepulchre. Driven by the cudgel and the sabre, 

 women, children, flocks, and herds, seek refuge in the cloisters of 

 these recluses. What prevents the armed oppressor from pursuing 

 his prey, and overthrowing such feeble ramparts ? The charity of 

 the monks : they deprive themselves of the last resources of life 

 to ransom their suppliants Cast your eyes between the Tem- 

 ple and Mount Sion ; behold another petty tribe, cut off from the 

 rest of the inhabitants of this city. The particular objects of eveiy 

 species of degradation, these people bow their heads without mur- 

 muring; they endure every kind of insult without demanding 

 justice; they sink beneath repeated blows without sighing: if 

 their head be required, they present it to the scimitar. On the 

 death of any member of this proscribed community, his companion 

 goes at night, and inters him by stealth in the valley of Jehoshaphat, 

 in the shadow of Solomon's Temple. Enter the abodes of these 

 people, you will find them, amid the most abject wretchedness, 

 instructing their children to read a mysterious book, which they in 

 their turn will teach their offspring to read. What they did five 

 thousand years ago, these people still continue to do. Seventeen 

 times have they witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem, yet no- 

 thing can discourage them, nothing can prevent them from 

 turning their faces towards Sion. To see the Jews scattered 

 over the whole world, according to the Word of God, must 

 doubtless excite surprise. But to be struck with supernat- 

 ural astonishment, you mast view them at Jerusalem ; you 

 must behold these rightful masters of Judea living as slaves 

 and strangers in their own country ; you must behold them expect- 

 ing, under all oppressions, a king who is to deliver them. Crushed 

 by the Cross that condemns them, skulking near the Temple, of 

 which not one stone is left upon another, they, continue in their 

 deplorable infatuation. The Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, are 

 swept from the earth ; and a petty tribe, whose origin preceded that 



