was on account of a wedding.

Daybreak found me up, and in full enjoyment of the exquisite luxury of
open air, in a clear and pure Oriental climate, before sunrise.

[Picture: Remains of old Christian church]

The servants were all busied in various occupations, and the peasantry
driving out the cattle, while I was surveying the considerable remains of
an old Christian church, which now forms one side of the shaikh's
mansion, and is used for a stable and a store of fodder. This vignette
represents its entrance, in a corner now darkened by the arcade in which
I had slept. The workmanship is massive and very rude, and the Greek of
the inscription upon the lintel not less barbarous, signifying "Martyr
Memorial Church of the Holy Herald,"--_i.e._, John the Baptist.

This discovery interested me deeply, in that region so remote from any
body of Christians at the present day, and among a population very like
savages dwelling amid stern hill-scenery.

Not less touching was the special designation of the saint so
commemorated. I believe that the Easterns pay more respect than
Europeans do to the memory of him whom the Saviour himself pronounced to
be greater than all the Old Testament prophets. And while we are
accustomed to ascribe to him only one of his official characters,--that
of the Baptizer,--they take pleasure in recalling his other scriptural
offices; as, for instance, this of the _Herald_, or Preacher {131a} of
righteousness, and that of the _Forerunner_. {131b} Indeed, individuals
are not unfrequently named after him in baptism by this latter
appellation, without the name John.

This building appears to have been at all times heavy and coarse in
construction; indeed, one may fairly suppose that part of the frontal has
at some time been taken down, and strangely put together again.

This church is the only object of curiosity that I had found along the
recent novel route.

On leaving _Mejdal_, I descended to inspect once more the site so
interesting to me of _Ras el 'Ain_, at half an hour's distance,--which I
unhesitatingly believe to be _Antipatris_, as I conceived it to be on my
first seeing the place the preceding year. I had then passed it rather
late in the evening, and upon the other side.

_Cuf'r Saba_, to which I was then going, is a wretched village, of
unburnt bricks, on the wide open plain, with no other water near it than
the deposit of rain-water in an adjoining square tank