s. It is as much as I
can do to comprehend this stupefying fact. How it wears a man out to
have to read up a hundred pages of history every two or three miles--for
verily the celebrated localities of Palestine occur that close together.
How wearily, how bewilderingly they swarm about your path!

In due time we reached the ancient village of Magdala.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

Magdala is not a beautiful place. It is thoroughly Syrian, and that is
to say that it is thoroughly ugly, and cramped, squalid, uncomfortable,
and filthy--just the style of cities that have adorned the country since
Adam's time, as all writers have labored hard to prove, and have
succeeded. The streets of Magdala are any where from three to six feet
wide, and reeking with uncleanliness. The houses are from five to seven
feet high, and all built upon one arbitrary plan--the ungraceful form of
a dry-goods box. The sides are daubed with a smooth white plaster, and
tastefully frescoed aloft and alow with disks of camel-dung placed there
to dry. This gives the edifice the romantic appearance of having been
riddled with cannon-balls, and imparts to it a very warlike aspect. When
the artist has arranged his materials with an eye to just proportion
--the small and the large flakes in alternate rows, and separated by
carefully-considered intervals--I know of nothing more cheerful to look
upon than a spirited Syrian fresco. The flat, plastered roof is
garnished by picturesque stacks of fresco materials, which, having
become thoroughly dried and cured, are placed there where it will be
convenient. It is used for fuel. There is no timber of any consequence
in Palestine--none at all to waste upon fires--and neither are there any
mines of coal. If my description has been intelligible, you will
perceive, now, that a square, flat-roofed hovel, neatly frescoed, with
its wall-tops gallantly bastioned and turreted with dried camel-refuse,
gives to a landscape a feature that is exceedingly festive and
picturesque, especially if one is careful to remember to stick in a cat
wherever, about the premises, there is room for a cat to sit. There are
no windows to a Syrian hut, and no chimneys. When I used to read that
they let a bed-ridden man down through the roof of a house in Capernaum
to get him into the presence of the Saviour, I generally had a
three-story brick in my mind, and marveled that they did not break his
neck with the strange experiment. I percei