Portlock, the average number of days in the year on
which no rain falls over London is two hundred
and twenty, and the days without rain in this
year are looked for and counted upon the fingers,
the peculiarity of our wet season becomes
conspicuous enough.

Settled wet in this country usually comes
from the south-west, and we have had it this
year chiefly from the south-west; our disastrous
storms that give the year a melancholy prominence
in the long annals of English shipwreck
were from that quarter. But we have had rain
also from all other quarters of the sky. During
our wet autumn season the south-west wind
commonly prevails; in our dry springs we have
north-easters. The wet of summer is associated
with winds from between north and west, but
these winds act rather by condensing vapour
than like the warm and moist currents from the
south-west by bringing up the rain. If there is
a high temperature with a south-west wind, the
vapour may be thin and invisible, the weather
most delightful. If the summer be cold, as it
is sometimes made in our country by the presence
of an unusual number of icebergs in the Atlantic,
while the south-west wind blows, the sky must
cloud over and the rain must often fall. As the
icebergs may chill our summers, so may an unusual
extension of the Gulf stream sometimes warm our
winters. General Sabine thus accounts for the
extreme mildness of the winter of 'twenty-one-
'twenty-two, for in that year the Gulf stream,
instead of reaching only to about the meridian
of the Azores, flowed to the shores of Europe.

CHRISTIANITY UNDER THE TURK.

EVERY one of our readers must have read
more or less of the horrible massacres that have
occurred on holy land by one set of Ottoman
subjects upon another, while their Turkish
governors looked on with indifference, or rather
seemed to approve of the bloodshed. But as all
may not be aware of the exact relative positions
of the two sets of Ottoman subjects, we give a
short sketch, condensed from an able contribution
by M. John Lemoinne to the Revue des
deux Mondes, some little time since.

A vast chain of mountains traverses a portion
of Syria, from north to south, under the name
of Lebanon; it divides into two branches, which
are separated by a broad and fertile valley. The
western branch retains the denomination of
Lebanon, while the eastern chain, opposite, and
nearly parallel to it, is called Anti-Lebanon.
The population of this mountainous district is
mainly composed of the Maronites and the
Druses. The Maronites occupy the most central
valleys and the highest ranges of the
principal group of Mount Lebanon, from Beyrouth
to Tripoli in Syria. Their origin and their
settlement on the Mount, date from the earliest
centuries of the Christian era.

At the epoch when the eremitical spirit was
at its height, there lived on the banks of the
Orontes a solitary saint, named Maroun, who,
by his fastings and austerities, attracted the
veneration of the neighbouring people. It
appears that in the quarrels which had already
broken out between Rome and Constantinople,
he sided with the Western party. His death, far
from cooling his partisans, gave new strength to
their zeal; it was rumoured that his dead body
worked miracles; his disciples raised a tomb and
a chapel in Hama; and before long there grew up
a convent, which acquired great celebrity in all
that part of Syria. Meanwhile, the disputes
between the two metropolitans grew warmer
and warmer, and the whole empire became
involved in the dissensions of the princes and the
priests. Towards the close of the seventh
century, a monk belonging to the convent of Hama,
named John the Maronite, acquired, by his
talents as a preacher, great influence throughout
the country, and became one of the strongest
supporters of the Latin party, or the Pope's
partisans. Consequently, the Pope's legate at
Antioch consecrated him Bishop of Djebaïl, and
sent him to preach in the Lebanon. The
missionary made rapid progress, and was followed
by nearly all the Syrian Christians. Little by
little, instead of founding a congregation, he
was in a condition to found a people. The Latins
who had fled for refuge to the Lebanon,
entrenched themselves in the free mountains, and
formed there a society which was civilly, as well
as religiously, independent. John kept these
mountaineers in regular and military order; he
supplied them with arms, and they soon became
the masters of all the hill country, as far as
Jerusalem. The schism which divided Islamism
at that epoch, facilitated their success.

For several centuries, their history remains
vague; they lost a great part of their possessions,
and were circumscribed within their present
limits. Although about the year 1215
they were reunited to the Church of Rome,
from which they had never been widely
separated, still they for a long time remained under
the authority of their patriarchs. In
consequence of the events which caused the
Christians to lose possession of the Holy Places, the
attachment of this people to the Church of
Rome was greatly weakened, and the authority
of the patriarchs thereby increased. But at
the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Court
of Rome, by able negotiations, induced the
Maronites to acknowledge its superiority definitely;
and in 1445, under the pontificate of Eugene
the Fourth, this acknowledgment was formally
renewed. Since that time, Rome has contrived
to keep the Maronites within the pale of her
communion by prudent concessions and
compromises in respect to discipline which we shall
shortly mention. Nevertheless, Rome seems to
care little about the fate of her afflicted
members in the East. In his last allocution, Pius
the Ninth speaks long and loudly of the hard
treatment which certain Italian bishops have
suffered, in not being allowed their own way in
stirring up disaffection against Victor Emmanuel;
but he cannot find time to say a word in favour
of the massacred Maronites. Perhaps his Holiness
may consider the Church discipline which