PILGRIMAGES. BETHLEHEM.

PILGRIMAGES. Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem, though not so numerous as formerly, are still considerable. The ignorant and credulous people of Asia, of every religion are taught by their priests, that a pilgrimage to some holy place of their religion, if not absolutely necessary, is highly important to their salvation. Hence millions have been led to Jerusalem, to Mecca, to the Lama, and to the idol Juggernaut, to perfect themselves in their several professions. They return possessed, in their own view, of a superior degree of sanctity, and with better hopes of heaven.

The deception may be a harmless one, so far as regards the community, except insomuch as it leads the subject to despise and neglect the ordinary duties of life. The Christian pilgrims and visitors to Jerusalem, are one of the chief means of support to its stationary inhabitants. At Easter they sometimes assemble to the number of five or six thousand, to celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ. Relics of every description which the pilgrims want, are manufactured in the city and vicinity; and furnished at various prices. This tax on their credulity is cheerfully paid.

On the mount of Olives is a Christian church, in which the visitor is shown the foot-print of the Saviour, the last which he made when he ascended into heaven. No vestige of Solomon's temple is to be seen, but the traveller is informed that the emperor Julian, called the apostate, in the fourth century, for the purpose of falsifying the prediction of Christ respecting the temple, permitted and encouraged the Jews to commence its reerection, and they were prevented by the breaking out of subterraneous fires. He is shown the precise spot where this

event took place.

The Jews live in poverty, and are confined to a small quarter in their ancient city. The temple of Mahomet is a magnificent structure; no Christian or Jew is allowed to enter its inner apartments. The Mahometans are there shown the footsteps of their prophet, surrounded by a golden grate, and a sacred Koran, of extraordinary size.

BETHLEHEM. Five miles south of Jerusalem is the village of Bethlehem. It is situated at the foot of a hill covered with vines and olives. It contains 300 houses, and 2400 inhabitants, principally Greek and Armenian Christians. Their chief employment is making rosaries and crucifixes, inlaid with mother of pearl, and relics of every description, for pilgrims. The great ornament of the place is a stately church, built by the empress Helena, over the spot where Jesus was born. It is in the form of a cross. In a grotto, furnished with silver and crystal lamps, is shown a large marble trough, as being the manger in which Christ was laid.

NAZARETH. Fifty miles north of Jerusalem, is the village of Nazareth, having at present a population of 2000, principally Christians. Here also is to be found much to satisfy the anxious pilgrim. He is shown the church attached to a convent of monks, and built, as they say, over a cave which was the residence of the Virgin Mary at the time of the conception. Wonderful powers are ascribed to this building: when a plague or epidemical sickness rages in the neighborhood, the sick are brought here, that they may rub themselves against the pillars of this church, believing it to be an efficacious remedy. The monks show the workshop of Joseph, where Jesus learned the trade of a carpenter, and spent the greater part of the first thirty years of his life. They also show the precipice where Jesus is said to have saved himself from the fury of the multitude. But the most venerated object is the table of stone on which Christ ate, before and after his resurrection.

CAPERNAUM. Capernaum, Cana of Galilee, and every other place mentioned as the scene of Christ's works, is distinctly pointed out to the pious traveller, and he and the inhabitant, his guide, part mutually satisfied; the one with the wonders he has seen, and the precious relics he has obtained, and the other with the money he has exacted from the credulity of his visitor.

JORDAN. Jordan is the only considerable river of Palestine. It rises at the foot of mount Libanus, in Syria, and pursuing a southerly course, widens into the lake of Genasereth, or sea of Tiberias or Galilee, as the same body of water is indifferently called. This lake forty-five miles north of Jerusalem, is seventeen miles long and six broad, and is formed by the waters of the Jordan, confined in a deep valley, environed by lofty eminences. The waters are pleasant and transparent. The particular spots where Christ called Peter and James from their fishing to be his disciples, where the miraculous draught of fishes was made, and where Christ walked upon the water, together with various other events recorded in his life as having taken place in the neighborhood, are distinctly pointed out. Pursuing still a southerly course, and receiving the brook Kedron, and several other small streams, the Jordan passes into the plains of Jericho, and after a course of about 150 miles, loses itself in the lake of Asphaltites, or Dead Sea. This lake, seventy miles long and ten broad, is situated in the southeastern section of Palestine. Several other streams flow into it, but it has no outlet; copious evaporations, caused, as is supposed, by subterraneous heat, supply the place of one. The water is clear and highly impregnated with salt. Its specific gravity is greater than any other known. The proportion of salt to that of water is found to be from twenty-five to fifty per cent. The asphaltum, or bitumen, a mineral pitch, rises from the bottom of the lake, and is con

JAFFA.

densed on the surface of the water. Another species of bitumen is found on the shore. The asphaltum is used for the various purposes of embalming, caulking, sculpture and coloring, and forms an important article of commerce. The country around is dreary, and the exhalations from the lake unhealthy and unpleasant to strangers. The few inhabitants in the neighborhood are not conscious of, and do not admit, its unhealthiness. They gain a subsistence by gathering the salts and bitumen. The stories of birds falling dead by means of its vapor, in attempting to fly over the lake are fabulous.

Antiquarians, with an assurance arising from the impossibility of contradiction, represent that the site of the Dead sea was formerly a fertile valley, resting partly on a mass of subterranean water, and partly on a stratum of bitumen; that lightning, or a miraculous fire from heaven, kindled the combustible matter; that the ground sank into the abyss beneath, and that Sodom and Gomorrah, and other cities built, as they suppose, on this plain, and of a bituminous stone, were consumed in the conflagration. It is needless to remark, that this hypothesis is conjectural, resting on no authentic historical facts, or natural appearances.

Damascus, the capital of this pachalic, is situated in a fertile plain, in latitude 38° north. It contains a mixed population of Turks, Armenians, Catholics, and Jews, estimated at 250,000. It is the principal city from which trade is carried on by caravans into the interior of Turkey, and to Arabia and Persia. Three caravans, each accompanied by 2500 armed men, go thrice a year to Bagdad, the journey occupying thirty days.

JAFFA. The principal seaport of Palestine is Jaffa, forty-five miles northwest of Jerusalem, in latitude 32° 30′ north. It stands on the site of Joppa, one of the earliest and most celebrated commercial cities of antiquity. The present city is but a faint shadow of the former. It is built on a tongue of land, extending some distance into the Mediterranean, and is the principal landing place for travellers to Jerusalem. It derives some historical importance from two circumstances in the life of Napoleon, which took place in its vicinity. One, the bold exposure of his life in visiting the hospitals where his soldiers lay sick, and dying with the plague, administering to their wants, and fearlessly handling their poisonous sores, to give courage to those who were well. The other is of a different character, called the massacre of Jaffa. In 1799, this place contained a garrison of Turkish soldiers, in the employment of Jessar Pacha, of Damascus. It was attacked by Bonaparte in person; having made a breach in the walls, an officer was sent to demand its surrender. The Turkish commander replied to the summons by cutting off the head of the messenger. The place was taken and given up to pillage. Three thousand men were made pris

oners, the greater part of whom had before been taken and paroled on condition of not again serving against the French. These men were shot by order of Bonaparte, in pursuance of the opinion of a council of his officers, that the above circumstances took them out of the ordinary case of prisoners of war. On his leaving Jaffa, a considerable number of his men were infected with the plague; their case was hopeless; they could not be removed; their deaths were hastened by administering to them large quantities of opium. This he said was more humane towards them, than leaving them in the hands of the Turks.

ARMENIA. Armenia is an extensive country of western Asia, principally subject to the Ottoman empire, a small portion of it only belongs to Persia. It contains 100,000 square miles, and about 2,000,000 inhabitants. It is noted for furnishing a large number of emigrating merchants, who to a considerable extent, carry on the commerce of the neighboring nations. Its inhabitants are principally christians, and possess a greater degree of civilization, intelligence, and enterprize, than any other people of Asia. This is attributed to the early introduction and continuance of christianity among them. Armenia is also noted for being the theatre of some of the earliest and most perplexing theological controversies, and of violent persecutions.

ARABIA. Arabia is a peninsula in the western section of Asia, lying between the Red sea and the Persian gulf, between 12° and 30° north latitude, and separated from Palestine by a great desert on its northern border. Its superficial contents are estimated at 1,000,000 of square miles, and the number of inhabitants at 12,000,000. These estimates are necessarily conjectural, and probably something too large. The same tribe of Bedouins, appearing at different times in different parts of the desert, are sometimes included twice in the same estimate. The roaming character of this people admit of less accuracy in the estimation of their numbers than most other nations.

Formerly, geographers divided Arabia into three sections, according to the supposed nature of its soil: Deserta, the barren, Petrea, the stony, and Felix, the happy, or productive. In later periods, this division has been exploded, and a more natural one substituted; that which distinguishes its coast from the interior. The former producing aloes, frankincense, myrrh, nutmegs, and coffee, and inhabited by a comparatively civilized and industrious people; and the latter consisting chiefly of a desert of moving sand, producing little else but thorns, thistles, and saline herbs, and inhabited by wandering tribes whose business is war, and whose subsistence is plunder.

YEMEN. The province of Yemen embraces a great portion of the fertile region; and though containing but about one

RED SEA.

fifteenth part of the territory, has one quarter of the inhabitants. It is the original country of the coffee tree, and now produces the best which is known. The best coffee is exported from

Mocha, a seaport of Yemen, on the Red sea, and bears the name of that port. Arabia produces 14,000,000 of pounds for exportation. The Turks and Arabians, who use it in great quantities give it a high flavor. They roast and pound it just before using it, and boil it but a short time, making it rather an infusion than a decoction. The Turks drink coffee, and present it to their visitors at all times of the day. The happiness of a rich mussulman consists in sitting at his ease, on a carpet, chewing opium, drinking coffee, and smoking tobacco. Travellers relate instances of one person drinking sixty cups of coffee, and smoking as many pipes of tobacco in a day, without injury.

From Arabia, the coffee shrub has been transplanted into every country where the soil and climate will admit of its cultivation. The island of Java, in the East Indies, Brazil, in South America, St. Domingo, and other West India islands, produce it in great abundance.

RED SEA. Arabia is an interesting country to Christians, Jews, and Mahometans, who, differing in almost every thing else, agree in a religious veneration for certain portions of this country.

On its southwestern border is the Red Sea, extending from the isthmus of Suez to the straits of Babelmandel, (the gate of misfortune, or the strait of shipwreck,) so called on account of its hazardous navigation. The distance is 1400 miles, and its