to be four hours distant, we started at 10.15, leaving our friends to proceed to Acre, where we hoped to rejoin them in the evening. Our path lay along the very summit of Mount Carmel, for the convent stands at its north-western extremity, and the Maharakah at its southeastern. The mountain was covered everywhere with dwarf oak and a stunted fir, as peculiar, I believe, to Carmel as the more stately cedar is to Lebanon; and there was little variety in the path itself, except that the distant scenery changed continually, and we passed through a succession of variegated landscapes and sea views of great beauty and variety, as the formation of the ground and the forest glades opened to us a prospect now on this side and now on the other, including the well-wooded slopes and ravines of the mount itself and the Mediterranean, with "the many-twinkling smile" of its blue waters on our right, and on the left, first, the plain of Acre, then the greater plain of Esdraelon, with the mountains that gird it about on all sides.

Our guide was an old servant of the convent, a Christian of the Latin rite, and sufficiently intelligent for one of his class. He professed to have visited the place of sacrifice several times, but not for some years. He told us that all persons of all creeds acknowledged the authenticity of the tradition, Christians and Mahommedans, Jews and Samaritans, alike. At noon we passed some ruins, for which our guide could give us no distinctive name; and in half-an-hour more came to a small Moslem village on the left of our path, called Es-Sifieh, where we took a second guide, as the Christian professed not to know the exact spot, but only the general situation of the altar. As we approached the south-eastern extremity of the range the foliage grew more dense, and we threaded our way through the woody maze, becoming more and more perplexed the farther we proceeded. It was half-past three before we came in sight of the place afar off, and then our difficulties commenced in earnest. This part of the mountain was a tangled thicket of dwarf oak and other underwood, abounding in thorns and briars, and gigantic thistles, which almost tore us in pieces; and it was half-past four before we reached our destination, more than six hours from the convent. We found the site of the altar marked by rude heaps of stone, such as are common to all places of pilgrimage in this country, heaped up, as of old, for a memorial of the accomplished VOW. It is situated on the top of a rocky mound, rising to a height of sixty or seventy feet above the proper summit of the range, just before it sinks to the plain on the south-east; and this rocky knoll was so rugged that we had to leave our horses at its foot, and to climb up it by a kind of valley. Here then we stood on the very site of that august solemnity, when issue was joined between the solitary hermit of Carmel and the courtly priests of Baal, in the sight of the idolatrous king and before all Israel. Scepticism would have pleaded with us in vain, under any circumstances; but here the very evidence of the senses was enough to force conviction of the authenticity of the sublime narrative. There are some places associated with historical events of great importance, which, when seen, appear to answer so exactly to the requirements of the narrative that they become evidences to one's own mind of the facts which have been there enacted. The

scene of David's victory over Goliath is such a place; and I should find it quite as difficult to doubt the credibility of that memorable duel in Wady-es-Sumt, with the mountains on either side, on which the hostile hosts were encamped with the valley between them, and with that water-course full of smooth pebbles before my eyes, as I should to question the story of the field of Waterloo amid such memorials of its thrilling episodes as the old farm of Huguemont and La Haye Sainte. El-Maharakah on Mount Carmel is another such spot. The very name, which signifies "the altar," or "place of sacrifice," coming down from the most remote antiquity in the mouths of the natives, is in itself a remarkable evidence of the fact; and all around serves only to corroborate it. Standing there, you have nothing to desiderate for the picture; all the accessories of the scene are perfect and complete. Here on this rocky knoll, as on a platform, stood the hairy man, surrounded by the priests of Baal and of the groves, conspicuous to Ahab, who, with his retinue, occupied the level space at the foot of the isolated mound, but still on the summit of the ridge, while the multitudes thronged around on the sloping sides of the hill, within sight of the altar, and within hearing of the prophet. Just below, washing the rocky base of Carmel, flows the river Kishon, and on its farther bank rises a remarkable mound, or barrow, called Tell El-Kasîs, i, e. the mound of the priests, where we could well imagine summary vengeance to have been executed on the false prophets, and where they found a common grave. Westward the sea was distinctly visible, and fancy would have found little difficulty in conjuring up on the far horizon the cloud like a man's hand, the announcement of which was to the prophetic ear the sound of abundance of rain; and to the south-east was Zerîn, the site of ancient Jezreel, and, between, the road across the plain, along which the prophet ran that marvellous course before the chariot of Ahab, serving for the time as his lackey, as Bishop Hall writes, "that the king and all Israel may see his humility no less than his power, and may confess that the glory of those miracles hath not made him insolent."

I said there was nothing wanting to the accessories of the scene for the full illustration of the inspired narrative; but this is not strictly true. One thing was wanting. An old difficulty recurred again with redoubled force as I stood at the place of sacrifice, viz. whence did the prophet derive that large supply of water which was poured over the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, with such lavish profusion, that it ran round about the altar, and he filled the trench also with water"? In order fully to appreciate this difficulty, it must be remembered that the drought had now prevailed for three years and a half, and that the fountains and brooks had failed to such an extent as to threaten the destruction of all the horses and mules. At such a time it is certain that the Israelites would be so chary of their supplies as to hesitate to waste twelve barrels of the precious fluid in so reckless a manner, for a purpose hitherto unexplained. I remembered the ingenious solution of the difficulty proposed by Professor Blunt in his "Undesigned Coincidences," who takes the fact stated by Jeremiah, that "Carmel is by the sea" (xlvi. 18), as a sufficient indication that it was sea-water

which was used on the occasion; and I had hitherto acquiesced in this very plausible explanation, under the impression that the place of sacrifice was in the vicinity of the convent, at the farther extremity of the mountain. But, as the sea was more than six hours distant from us, this theory was at once exploded, assuming the tradition of the place of sacrifice to be well grounded, which, from many corroborating circumstances, I could not any longer doubt, and I was driven to seek for some other source for the water. The Kishon, of course, occurred at once, and one who has only read of that ancient river sweeping away the chariots and horses of the host of Jabin would find little difficulty in believing that even after so lengthened a drought sufficient water might be found in its bed for the purpose designed by the prophet. But then its appearance was very far from warranting such a conclusion. The rainy season was scarcely over, yet the waters of the Kishon had dwindled down to the dimensions of a very inconsiderable rill; and it was quite clear that, however during the rainy season, when swollen by the drainage of the great plain and the surrounding mountain ranges which feed its tributaries, it may still assume a threatening aspect as of old, and reassert its ancient power to fight, in conjunction with "the stars in their courses," against Sisera, yet so soon as the flood has subsided it rapidly returns to its wonted channel, and becomes the most inconsiderable of all perennial streams. Besides, the toil of carrying four barrels of water, three times repeated, up to the height of Carmel from the stream below, to say nothing of the time required for the operation, would scarcely have been submitted to by the impatient people at the bidding of the prophet, whom, in their sullen mood, they regarded as the author of all their miseries.

I left the place of sacrifice, thoroughly baffled by this difficulty, which was to be speedily solved in a manner that I little expected. I had descended from the mound on which the altar was erected, which I have described as rising above the general level of the mountain, and having examined the small plain or table-land from which I presumed the king and his court to have witnessed the ceremonies, was preparing to descend the mountain to the brook Kishon, when my Mohammedan guide addressed me with the words "Bishrub Howijah?"-Will you drink, sir? “Phe moi ?” I asked ;—Is there water?-not much interested, although my thoughts were so fully occupied with water, for I supposed that he had brought a skin of water with him, from which he was offering me an unsavoury and unpalatable draught. However, with the assurance that there was plenty, he beckoned us to follow him, and brought us to a rocky cave, in the base of the mound so often mentioned as that on the summit of which the altar stood; where, to my intense astonishment and delight, I found a copious supply of pure and delicious water. I need hardly say that I plied my guide with questions in quick succession; and although he had not the slightest idea of the purport of my inquiries, his answers were as satisfactory as if I had prompted them myself. Was it a bîr, or an 'ain ?—a tank, or a spring? "A spring from the earth; not a tank of rain water." Was the cave large? for, as the water came up into its mouth, I could not ascertain this by actual

observation.

He assured me it was "6 ever so large." Was the water deep? "It was the depth of many men." Unfortunately I had no cord to test the accuracy of the statement. Is there always water here? Sir," said the man, very gravely, "there is as much water here at the end of the dry season as there is in the rainy season.' I did not question further; this was enough. Every difficulty was removed, and now I could understand, not only whence the water was drawn to pour over Elijah's sacrifice, but why it was that the prophet had appointed this place for the determination of that solemn controversy of which all Israel was to be witness. The contiguity of this fountain may also explain the position of that ancient altar of the Lord which Elijah did but repair, after it had been broken down and remained in ruin we know not how long (1 Kings xviii. 30). It is a very remarkable fact, that in the interval between the latest notice of this altar in sacred history and this recent recovery of the traditionary site, there intervene two testimonies in pagan writers to the sacred character of the mountain and the veneration in which this altar was held; one of Jamblichus, who, in his "Life of Pythagoras," informs us that the philosopher passed some time in solitude on this mountain; the other by Tacitus, who tells us that Vespasian here consulted the oracle of the God of Carmel.

Our guide informed us, that, after the bombardment of Acre in 1840, a party of English officers had mounted the height and hoisted the British flag on the tree which overshadows the Maharakah; and also that our Ordnance Officers, when making their survey of the country in the same year, set up their nishan, i.e. signal, meaning their theodolite, on this commanding elevation, which will account for the extreme accuracy with which the Maharakah itself, and all the country about it, is plotted in their map.

On our descent to the Kishon, we met a party of ill-looking Arabs, who, however, allowed us to pass without molestation. This river is now called Nahar Mokutta, i. e. division, or "cutting in pieces;" but whether it is so named from the sanguinary decision of the false prophets by Elijah, I cannot say. The Tell el-Kasîs, on nearer examination, proved to be, in its lower part at least, a rocky mound; but whether it may not owe its present elevation to an artificial accumulation of earth we could not determine.

It was half-past five before we had completed our exploration of these various objects of interest; night was fast approaching; and we had a long ride before us, as Acre was our destination to-night. So we made the best of our way along the roots of Carmel to Caifa, the appointed rendezvous for our party; and on arriving there at 7.25 were not surprised to learn that our friends had started for Acre some hours ago. At 20 minutes to 8 we set out to follow them in the dark, forded the Kishon at its mouth in half-an-hour, and presently passed the hulks of some shipwrecked vessels high and dry on the coast. At 10 o'clock we crossed the river Nam'an; and, leaving Acre on our left, came in half-an-hour to the gardens of Abdullah Pasha, where we found our tents pitched, and our friends comfortably settled for the night.

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Reviews and Notices.

The China Mission: embracing a History of the various Missions of all Denominations among the Chinese. With Biographical Sketches of deceased Missionaries. By WILLIAM DEAN, D.D., twenty years a Missionary to China. New York: Sheldon & Co. London: Trübner & Co. 1859.

THE author of this book was, we believe, sent to Bangkok and Hong Kong by the American Baptist Board of Foreign Missions. The chapters on the customs, language, history, &c. of China, do not convey very much information, and the latter part of the book is the most interesting. We think the author might have produced a book of much greater usefulness than the present.

Our readers will see, by an advertisement on the cover, that a new and revised edition of the first volume of DR. WordsWORTH'S Greek Testament, containing the Four Gospels, has been published.

It differs from the former edition in the following respects,

A larger type has been adopted in the Notes, uniform with that which is used in the Notes on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul, already published. Considerable additions have been made to the Notes; and other modifications have been made, with a view of rendering it available not only to classical and biblical scholars, but also for general use, in private study, and in family reading. Introductions also, similar in plan to those contained in the two other volumes, have been prefixed to the several Gospels in the new edition.

These alterations and additions being so extensive, arrangements have been made with the publishers, Messrs. Rivington, that in case any purchaser of the former edition of the Gospels should desire to procure the new edition for his own use, he may be supplied with it by them at the trade price, viz. at a reduction of twenty-five per cent. on the price at which it is published.

The Convert of Massachusetts is No. VIII. of the Historical Tales now in course of publication by Messrs. J. H. & J. Parker. It shows the state of the Church in America before the Revolution, when Bishops were denied to that continent, and candidates for holy orders were compelled to come to England for ordination.

We have received a very valuable pamphlet, by the Rev. Dr. CALDWELL, on the Substitution of Roman for the Indian Characters, which at present we are able only to acknowledge.

The Report of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel for 1859 is published, and is full of important and interesting matter.