riven, twisted, pierced by age, and disproportionately large for their crown of silver-green leaves, give a touch of beauty to the baldness of the landscape, and afford shade to the peasant while tending the long-eared, broadtailed sheep, and lively black goats, that browse among them. Bare-legged, bare-armed, with huge slippers, it may be, and a white or coloured kerchief, old and faded, round his close-fitting skull-cap; over his blue shirt, which reaches to his calves, a striped abba, rude enough in its tailoring, rather a square bag than a coat, a leather belt keeping it tight round him, he sits there in the spring time, among the red anemones, tulips, and poppies, the short-lived glories of the pastures of Palestine, and looks the picture of vacuity, his staff on the ground beside him, and his club tied to his girdle. Born of hereditary ignorance, his intelligence is little superior to that of the sheep he watches. Bethlehem stands 100 feet higher than Jerusalem, being 2,550 feet above the sea at its highest point. But the neighbouring hills are lower than those round the Holy City, and there is more cultivation; Bethlehem looks slightly down on its surrounding heights, while Jerusalem is commanded by its girdle of hills. The population of David's city consists of Latin, Greek, and Armenian Christians, through the influence of the triple, fortress-like convent round the ancient church, but they are on good terms with each other, and even intermarry, which these rival sects seldom do in Jerusalem. The Roman Catholics have splendid school-buildings, much larger and finer than any others, and I have no doubt they do much good. I did not see any tattooing among the women, and, indeed, throughout Palestine there is little of it, compared with the fashion in Egypt, where the features and arms are often quite disfigured. The peasant-women of the Holy Land, with better taste, confine themselves to a mark on the palms of their hands, between the eyes, and on the chin, with a row of small points along the lower lip, producing an effect something like that of the patches worn last century by English ladies. But the women of Bethlehem are superior to these rude follies. Thanks, perhaps, to the blood of the Crusaders, of a share of which they boast, they are altogether finer than any women I saw elsewhere in Palestine, with the exception, perhaps, of those of Nazareth. The population is said to be about 4,000. Though the town was walled in the time of Boaz, when the elders "sat in the gate," and when Rehoboam fortified it, there are no walls now. The flat roofs join each other in many cases, and thus afford an easy passage from one house to another, which is often used. This explains our Lord's counsel to His disciples 2 not to think, when troubles burst on the land, of coming down to take anything out of the house, if they chanced to be on the housetop at the moment the news reached them. They were rather to flee along the roofs, and thus escape. The local tradesmen sometimes press one to come into their dwellings to inspect their wares, and an opportunity is thus given of seeing the inside of a Bethlehem establishment. The room is of arched stone, without furniture, except the inevitable divan, or broad seat along the wall; and the women have no timidity at your entrance. Squatted on the floor, one, it may be, is busy sewing while she watches her baby in the cradle, another is preparing to bake, and a third will bring you a water-pipe and a glass of water, while you look over the crucifixes, 1 Ruth iv. 1; 2 Chron. xi. 5, 6. ↑ Matt. xxiv. 17; Mark xiii. 15; Luke xvii. 31. rosaries, olive-wood boxes, mother-of-pearl carved shells, and little jars and cups of asphalt, or red stone. 3 Talking of housetops reminds one of the variety of allusions to them in the Bible. Samuel communed with Saul on the housetop,' for privacy, so that his dwelling must have been flat-roofed. Absalom spread a tent on the top of David's house for his father's wives, that it might be seen by all Israel that he had assumed the throne, by his taking them as his own.2 It is better," says the Book of Proverbs, "to dwell in a corner of the housetop than with a brawling woman in a wide house; nor would it be any great hardship to do so in Palestine in the hot weather, for in the summer months the roof is the best sleeping-place. The text, however, doubtless means that even in the colder season any wretched spot, though exposed alike to rain and wind, is better than the best room with the company of a scold. Who would have thought that old Hebrew families were ever thus miserable? When the paralytic was brought to Jesus, his bearers took him up the outside stairs, so common still in the court or yard, and carried him to the housetop. Many roofs have a hatchway opening into the room below, but closed in the cold months; and this having been lifted, it was easy to let the man down at the feet of the Saviour.* His couch, we may be sure, was simply a hammock, offering no difficulty to his entrance through the opening. To think of his bearers breaking up the roof, is out of the question. If cemented, it would be quite a task to do so, and the house would have been spoiled; nor would it have been much better had it been necessary to tear or break a way through a thick bedding of earth and boughs, such as we find in some places. The crowd below would have been very soon scattered by such a rain of dust and clods-not to speak of broken sticks or stalks—as would have come down on them. There was just such a hatchway as I have described on the top of the schoolhouse of the American Mission at A: siout, in Egypt, and they are common in Palestine. Isaiah speaks of the people of Moab assembling on their housetops," howling and weeping abundantly" at the news of the taking of their capital by the foe, and of the population of Jerusalem as "wholly gone up to the housetops to look out for the Assyrians coming to attack them, or at the country people streaming through the gates for protection, or in hopes of catching sight of the standards of Tirhakah advancing to their deliverance. Jeremiah, like Isaiah, predicted that there would be "lamentation upon all the housetops of Moab." The Jews, in their apostasy, copied the evil example of Ahaz in erecting altars to the host of heaven on the top of his house, for they built private ones for the same idolatry on their own roofs, and burnt incense upon them.6 And Christ, again, tells His disciples to use the low housetops for a pulpit from which to proclaim the glad news He had told them." 1 Isa. xv. 3. 2 Isa. xxii. 1. 3 Geikie, Hours with the Bible, iv. 440. 4 Jer. xlviii. 38. Zeph. i. 5; Jer. xix. 13. 7 Matt. x. 27. CHAPTER XX. BETHLEHEM TO JERUSALEM. Ir brings very forcibly before the mind how small a country Palestine is, to find that the chief scenes of David's life, before he reigned in Jerusalem, lie within a circle of not more than twelve or fifteen miles round his native village. It was only a three or four hours' journey for the boy from Bethlehem to Saul's camp at Socoh; and by starting early, as he would, he could readily have been among the fighting men in the beginning of the forenoon, so as to leave abundant time for his magnificent duel with Goliath. It would be little for one so strong and active, to go on his venturous challenge down the stony, brushwood-covered hill on which his brothers and the other Hebrews stood drawn up, across the half-mile of broad, flat valley, now covered every season with grain, then over the narrow trench in the middle full of white pebbles worn by the rain; nor would it have been more than a youth could do without special effort, to return again the same night to his father's house in Bethlehem. Adullam, Keilah, Carmel, Ziph, all lie within a small circle David's adventures, indeed, during several years, may all be followed in a space smaller almost than any of our English counties. But it was time to leave this most interesting spot, where, in David's own words-called forth, it may be, by the scenery round his native town-" the little hills rejoice |