Ruins of Sebaste--Scriptural Landscapes--Halt at Genin--The Plain of
Esdraelon--Palestine and California--The Hills of
Nazareth--Accident--Fra Joachim--The Church of the Virgin--The Shrine of
the Annunciation--The Holy Places.

"Blest land of Judea! thrice hallowed of song,
Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like throng:
In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy sea,
On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee!"

J. G. Whittier.

Latin Convent, Nazareth, _Friday May_ 7, 1852.

We left Jerusalem by the Jaffa Gate, because within a few months neither
travellers nor baggage are allowed to pass the Damascus Gate, on account
of smuggling operations having been carried on there. Not far from the
city wall there is a superb terebinth tree, now in the full glory of its
shining green leaves. It appears to be bathed in a perpetual dew; the
rounded masses of foliage sparkle and glitter in the light, and the great
spreading boughs flood the turf below with a deluge of delicious shade. A
number of persons were reclining on the grass under it, and one of them, a
very handsome Christian boy, spoke to us in Italian and English. I
scarcely remember a brighter and purer day than that of our departure.
The sky was a sheet of spotless blue; every rift and scar of the distant
hills was retouched with a firmer pencil, and all the outlines, blurred
away by the haze of the previous few days, were restored with wonderful
distinctness. The temperature was hot, but not sultry, and the air we
breathed was an elixir of immortality.

Through a luxuriant olive grove we reached the Tombs of the Kings,
situated in a small valley to the north of the city. Part of the valley,
if not the whole of it, has been formed by quarrying away the crags of
marble and conglomerate limestone for building the city. Near the edge of
the low cliffs overhanging it, there are some illustrations of the ancient
mode of cutting stone, which, as well as the custom of excavating tombs in
the rock, was evidently borrowed from Egypt. The upper surface of the
rocks, was first made smooth, after which the blocks were mapped out and
cut apart by grooves chiselled between them. I visited four or five tombs,
each of which had a sort of vestibule or open portico in front. The door
was low, and the chambers which I entered, small and black, without
sculptures of any kind. The tombs bear some resemblance in their general
plan to those of Thebes,