y the
tufts of evergreen oak which spring up everywhere over the hills. These
tufts of brushwood are found to come from immense roots, each one enough
for several camel-loads of fire-wood. They are dug up by the peasantry,
and sold in Jerusalem for fuel, under the name of Carameh.

It is popularly said that "once upon a time" a man of Jerusalem went to
reside at Hebron, and the usual chequered events of life occurred, ending
in the calamity of losing his eyesight. In extreme old age he resolved
upon returning to his native city, and when he reached the Convent of Mar
Elias, half-way between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, the weather being hot,
he took off his turban to rest it on the saddle before him. "Oh, our
father," said his sons, who were walking by his side, "why art thou
uncovering the bareness of thy head?" "It is," he replied, "that I may
enjoy the coolness that is to be enjoyed beneath the trees that I
remember to have been by the roadside all the way hence to Jerusalem."
They assured him that not only did no such avenue exist, but that not a
tree was to be seen in any direction, right or left, and that much of the
change was owing to the hostilities that had been carried on among the
villages under the laxity of the Turkish government. "Is it so?" said
he: "then turn back, my sons, and let me die where I have lived so long;
Jerusalem is no longer what it was."

This anecdote, current among the peasantry, describes strongly, by its
very simplicity, the process that for centuries has been in operation to
reduce that country to the condition in which we now find it.

I ought not to leave the subject of forest scenery in Palestine without
inviting attention to the eloquent passages in Dr Thomson's "Land and the
Book" upon that subject. This veteran missionary of the Lebanon knows
the whole country well, and being an American of the Far West, has been
accustomed to large forests, huge trees, and charms of woodland scenery;
yet he speaks with rapture of the groves about Banias--the solemn glens
and verdure of the Belad Besharah, and the magnificence of the Sindianeh.
This author has a keen relish for all the varied beauties of nature, and
possesses the faculty of describing them so as to enable us to share in
its healthful gratifications.

X. A TEMPLE OF BAAL AND SEPULCHRE OF PHOENICIA.

About midway between Tyre and Sidon lies what has been called by Porter
and Tristram a kind of Syrian Stonehenge; b