a poet and a woman of
letters. On entering Jerusalem she gave the reins to her imagination,
and set herself to work on one of those delightful letters which
afterwards formed the basis of a complete narrative of her Eastern tour.
"I raise my hands," she says, "towards the mountain of the house of the
Lord, experiencing an indescribable thankfulness for my safe arrival
here. I am in Jerusalem; I dwell upon the hill of Zion--the hill of King
David. From my window the view embraces all Jerusalem, that ancient and
venerable cradle of the grandest memories of humanity--the origin of so
many sanguinary contests, so many pilgrimages, hymns of praise, and
chants of sorrow."

Everybody knows what constitutes a traveller's life in Palestine: a
succession of pilgrimages to the several places connected with Old
Testament history, or with the life of our Lord; a constant renewal of
those touching experiences which so deeply impress the heart and brain
of every Christian. Even the freethinker cannot gaze without emotion on
the shrines of a religion which has so largely affected the destinies of
humanity and the currents of the world's history. What, then, must be
the feeling with which they are regarded by those to whom that religion
is the sure promise of eternal life? Not Greece, with its memories of
poets, sages and patriots; its haunted valleys and mysterious
mountain-tops; nor Italy, with its glories of art and nature, and its
footprints of a warrior-people, once rulers of the known world, so
appeals to the thoughtful mind as does the Holy Land, in the fulness of
its sanctity as the home and dwelling-place of Jesus Christ.

But the attention of Miss Bremer was not wholly given to the hallowed
scenes by which she was surrounded. In the East, as in the West, she
reverted to the question of woman's independence, the restoration of her
sex to its natural and legitimate freedom. What she saw was not of a
nature to cheer and encourage her. Nowhere else is the condition of
woman so deplorable; not so much because she is deprived of her liberty
as because she is condemned to the most absolute ignorance. And in this
ignorance lies one of the principal causes of Oriental degeneracy; for
the young, being brought up in the polluted atmosphere of the harem,
undergo a fatal enervation of body and soul, and imbibe the germs of the
most fatal vices.

One day, in company with several young persons of her own sex, Frederika
Bremer paid a visit