from our view. We met and overtook
many people. There were gay devotees
from Catholic countries, one of whom, a
young Italian nobleman, in patent-leather
hunting-boots, and jacket and knicker-bockers
of violet-coloured velvet, found
infinite amusement in putting spurs into
his high-mettled horse, galloping past our
party like the wind, and then, after waiting
for us to come up with and pass him,
repeating the process, until George taught
him what good jockeyship could do by
beating him hollow in a mile race, and on
what was little better than an Arab screw.

This gentleman was very eloquent on
the sentimental advantages of a visit to
the Holy Land, and the advantages it
would give us in talking to ladies. He
announced his intention of staying at a
convent in Jerusalem, instead of at an
hotel, as such "a sojourn" would be "more
poetical." Now and again, too, we came
upon a savage figure on horseback, armed
to the teeth, the long gun athwart his
shoulders, and the pistols and sword at
his side, all looking as if they were in
frequent use, while his flowing robes and
loose turban streaming in the wind, his
swarthy face, rude sandals, and bare feet,
made him look both wild and picturesque.
He was a Bedouin chief, who had come
down from the country near Moab; or a
dweller in one of the squalid villages to
the right or left, whose experience of the
road dated from the time when its little
wayside refuges were sorely needed, and
who could not bring himself to believe in
the safety of travelling without arms. We
saw no wheeled vehicles, and with the
exception of a disabled cart or omnibus,
which was lying uselessly at the roadside,
met with none during our stay in Palestine.
A wooden house borne by two mules,
the occupant of which reposed at full
length, and took a bird's-eye view of the
country through the holes which did duty
for windows, was the only substitute for a
carriage we saw. Every one else, who rode
at all, was mounted on camel, horse, mule,
or ass, and in such portions of the country
as we visited, the arrangements for
locomotion have remained unaltered since the
days of Abraham.

Through wooded slopes, with the small
red-legged partridges running across the
road, and almost under our horses' feet;
past woods in which the locust-tree spreads
forth its leaves, and where the palm grew
rarer as we left the sea; by plains where
the Oriental shepherd-boy might be seen
leading his flock, the black goats invariably
keeping on his right hand, and the sheep
on his left, in two compact masses, which
never mingled, and which, it need be
scarcely added, gave a new significance
to the awful imagery of Scripture; by
villages, the houses of which were in ruins,
but where large plantations of the olive
and the vine flourish on the terraced
slopes; past, in particular, the village of
St. John, where the Evangelist is said to
have lived before he preached in the
wilderness around; over mountain top after
mountain top, the imaginative Alee always
promising that we should see the Holy
City after the next summit was reached—
and we come at last upon a large modern
building of new stone, and of similar
architecture to the literary and scientific
institutions, or the corn exchange of our country
towns, but many degrees larger. This
is the new Russian convent, and the bulk
of the pilgrims we left at Jaffa, and who
are now following us hither on foot, will
rest within its walls until after Easter. It
is now two P.M. on the afternoon of the 2nd
of December, 1869; and as we clatter over
the rough stones of Jerusalem's narrow
streets, return the salute of the ragged
Turkish sentry by the city walls, take
possession of the rooms at the Mediterranean
Hotel which, our faithful dragoman
engaged yesterday by telegraph from Jaffa,
and prepare for a ramble before dinner to
Mount Olivet and the Garden of Gethsemane
—I find myself speculating whether
such thrilling experiences can be real; if it
be possible that we left Alexandria only
three days ago, and that we could, although
in the heart of Zion, reach Charing Cross
in nine days.

WEEDS.

THERE is no lack now-a-days of flowers, or
of those who bestow attention upon them.
Whether we admire "bedding" or "foliage"
plants, or whether we eschew these
as frivolities, and go in for hardy perennials
and herbaceous species, we have all of us
a genuine love of flowers implanted in us,
which will find its vent somehow or other.
And just in proportion as our admiration
of flowers induces us to bestow time and
trouble upon bringing them to perfection,
we are harassed and annoyed by the
weeds which, all unbidden, spring up on
every side of us, and put in an appearance
even when we flatter ourselves that they