162 



LETTERS FROM PROFESSOR CARLYLE 



both where the library is and what hopes we are to entertain of being 

 permitted to investigate its treasures. 



I hope your Lordship received the letter I wrote to you from Jaffa. 

 It contained an account of my tour, as far as that place, with a few 

 observations I ventured to insert, relative to my friends in Egypt. I 

 was fortunate in arriving at Jaffa just before the Holy Week, by which 

 means I was enabled to proceed to Jerusalem without much danger, 

 in company with a caravan of Armenian pilgrims. I spent ten (I 

 need not say to your Lordship most interesting) days in the city and 

 neighbourhood of Jerusalem. I shall not attempt to describe scenes 

 that have been described so often, but I cannot help saying that the 

 city of Jerusalem is utterly unlike any other place I have ever seen. 

 Its situation upon an immense rock, surrounded with valleys that 

 seem cut out by the chisel ; the contrast exhibited between the 

 extremest degree of barrenness, and the extremest degree of fertility, 

 which border upon each other here almost every yard, without one 

 shade of mitigated character on either side ; the structure of the 

 walls, many of the stones in which are 15 or 16 feet long, by four 

 high and four deep ; the very size mentioned, by the way, of 

 the hewn stones of Solomon * (1 Kings, vii. 10.) ; the houses 

 where almost every one is a fortress ; and the streets, where almost 

 every one is a covered way ; all together formed an appearance 

 totally dissimilar from that of any other town I have met with either 

 in Europe or Asia. One of my excursions from Jerusalem was to the 

 monastery of St. Saba, in order to examine the library of MSS. there. 

 It had been often mentioned to me, and I was resolved if possible to 

 investigate it; I believe I did run a little more hazard than was perfectly 

 prudent, as the whole country at present swarms with banditti ; however 

 by means of a guard consisting of those very persons that I dreaded I 

 arrived in safety, and had the pleasure to make a complete examination. 

 Except, however, twenty-nine copies of the Gospels, and one of the 



* " The city was intersected," says Townson, " as well as encompassed with walls of 

 great strength, whose bases would still remain alter the demolition of the city." 



