148 
THE PILGRIMS. 
fired, division answering division, as if it were some concerted 
signal. This mixture of military and religious proceeding, pro¬ 
duced an effect perfectly novel to a European eye, in the nine¬ 
teenth century ; though it might have been more than sufficiently 
familiar to that of a knight-companion in the thirteenth, when 
the crusades covered every hauberk with a pilgrim’s amice. But 
the recollection of what country I saw these in, conjured up 
a very different image. I was in the land of the Medes, on the 
very spot to which the ten tribes were brought in captivity about 
two thousand years ago; and from which, in the fullness of time, 
the scattered remnants were collected, (after the first return, B. C. 
536, by command of Cyrus,) and led back to their native land, 
on the decree of “ Artaxerxes the kingwhen Ezra “ gathered 
them together to the river that runneth to Ahava, and there they 
abode in their tents three days ; and he viewed the people, and 
the priests. And he proclaimed a fast there, that they might 
afflict themselves before God, to seek of him a right way for 
j 
them, and for their little ones, and for their substance. And the 
Lord was intreated of them: and he delivered them from the 
hand of the enemy, and of such as lay in wait by the way.” And 
Ezra, and those with him, came to Jerusalem. 
We see in this account, from the Book of Ezra, (chap, viii.) 
that the wild tribes of the mountains were then regarded as 
banditti; and that no decrees of safe-conduct from the king 
would have more effect in those days, than in the present, to 
protect a rich caravan from ambuscade and depredation. But I 
must own, there are some points of observation in the encamp¬ 
ment before me, which a little disturbed the resemblance between 
its holy grouping, and that which followed the really pious or¬ 
dinance of the sacred scribe of Israel. The Mahomedan even- 
