LITMIR.BIZ

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must have a curious idea of Christian devotions, for an improper use of his fist.

      About this time the guest-chambers and corridors of the monastery—where families of the better class who had come from Acre, Tyre, Nazareth, Jaffa, and other towns had passed the night, in the lodging provided for them—began to disgorge, and the variety of costume displayed by the shouting, singing, and dancing multitude formed a scene sufficiently picturesque and animated. Sometimes processions are formed, where offerings are made to the miracle-working statue of Notre Dame de Mont Carmel, in return for a child that has been prayed for, or a sick person who has been healed, but on this occasion her protection did not seem to have been invoked, or, at all events, there was no public display of gratitude. There is a large terrace in front of the monastery, and here a dozen horsemen or so were throwing the djerrid and exhibiting their equestrian skill, much to the detriment of the unfortunate animals they bestrode, whose flanks were bleeding profusely from the pointed angles of the iron stirrups which serve as spurs, and from the cruel bits by which, when going at full speed, they were jerked back upon their haunches.

      While all this was going on outside, mass was being performed in the church for those who wished to vary the entertainment. This is a spacious, vaulted building in the form of a Greek cross, with a fine-toned organ in one transept, and a statue of the miraculous Lady of Mount Carmel, between four Corinthian columns, seated on a sort of throne in a richly decorated dress of white satin, in the other. Both the Virgin and the Infant in her arms had golden crowns on their heads, the result of a miracle, for when the Frère Jean Baptiste undertook the reconstruction of the monastery fifty years ago, he intrusted the carving of the statue to Caraventa, a sculptor of Genoa, and, not having money enough to buy her a crown suitable to her position, procured her one of silver, and one of copper gilt for the Child, saying as he did so, “You will know how to procure yourself a better one;” and this she achieved shortly after at Naples, where a rich nobleman presented her with two in return for a miraculous cure of which he was the subject. There is a book sold in the monastery containing a list of the miracles that have been performed by this statue, which was gazed upon with the greatest awe and veneration by the country people. They prostrate themselves before her, touching the ground with their foreheads, and offering up their supplications after a fashion that would shock an enlightened Buddhist by the superstition and credulity thus suggested. On each side of the figure are two altars, one dedicated to St. Jean Baptiste, and the other to St. Simon Stock, an Englishman, who was made Prior-General of the Order of Carmelites in 1245, and who in his day did more than any other to increase their renown. On the right of this is the statue of Elijah slaying a prophet of Baal, which was sculptured at Barcelona by Dom Amédéo. The prophet has got his false rival on the ground between his feet, and, with uplifted sword, is in the act of cutting his head off. He is hung round with votive offerings, and worshippers crowd around to touch some part of the statue, and then kiss the finger that has touched it. On a table in front a monk was selling engravings to the worshippers. I bought one of these, representing Elijah sending Elisha to look for the sign of rain. In the distance is the small cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, and emerging from it is the figure of the Virgin and Child, for the Roman Catholic tradition has it that in this cloud was revealed to the prophet the dogma of the immaculate conception, in which he was a firm believer from that time forward.

      Descending a few rock-cut steps close to this image, we find ourselves in the cave of Elijah, a small grotto about ten feet by fifteen, at one end of which is an altar, which the devotees firmly believe is the actual rock that he used as his bed. Here a priest was performing mass. The body of the church was full of devotees, for the most part women in white burnooses, who squatted on the ground, and seemed principally engaged in suckling their babies.

      The monastery derives a considerable revenue from these celebrations, as in good seasons votive offerings to a large value are brought; but the chief source of its wealth is derived from the sale of indulgences, or at least what virtually amounts to this. By these means it exercises a very powerful moral as well as financial influence all through the country, and as the Christian population, which is subject to it, is very large in proportion to the Moslem in the neighbourhood, and as it is under the exclusive protectorate of France, this influence partakes also of a very distinct political character. In fact, the Christians of the whole of this district enjoy a far more efficient protection against the oppression of the Turkish government than do the Moslems themselves.

      The monastery is a modern building, and if it only had a tall chimney instead of a cupola it would look more like a manufactory than a religious edifice. The top of the cupola is five hundred and fifty feet above the level of the sea, which is immediately beneath, and commands a magnificent view. When Napoleon besieged Acre in 1799, and was compelled to raise the siege and retreat, the Turks fell upon the wounded French soldiers who were left in hospital here and massacred them to a man. The convent was, of course, deserted, and soon after fell into ruin. For twenty-seven years this much venerated spot was abandoned, but the order to which it had given its name never ceased to agitate for the restoration of its sanctuary, and the work of reconstruction was finally undertaken in 1826, by Jean Baptiste, and completed in 1853. So the present building is only thirty years old. In front of the main terrace is a flower-garden and some trellised vines, in the centre of which is a pyramid surmounted by a cross, with an inscription to the effect that it commemorates the resting-place of the bones of the French soldiers. It was not till five years after their massacre that Father Jules du St. Sauveur ventured back to the mountain, where he found these melancholy traces of the tragedy scattered among the ruins, and, collecting them, hid them in a cave until, under more auspicious circumstances, they could receive a Christian burial. There can be no doubt that the order is now increasing in wealth and influence, and expectation runs high that the day is not far distant when northern Palestine will become a French province, and when its prosperity will be still further secured.

A SUMMER CAMP ON CARMEL.

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      Esfia, Aug. 20.—The fact that the cholera was raging in Egypt, that in the ordinary course of events it was certain to visit Syria, that even if it did not, the months of July, August, and September are disagreeably hot at Haifa, determined me to make the experiment of camping out on the highest point of Carmel, and I am at this moment sitting under a Bedouin tent, arranged after a fashion of my own, at an altitude of eighteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, upon which I look down in two opposite directions.

      On the northwest, distant six miles, curves the Bay of Acre, with the town itself glistening white in the distance; and on the southwest, distant seven miles, the Mediterranean breaks upon the beach that bounds the plain of Sharon, and with a good glass I can make out the outlines of the ruins of the old port of Cæsarea. Southward are the confused hills known as the mountains of Samaria; beyond them, in the blue haze, I can indistinctly see the highlands of Gilead; while nearer still, Mount Gilboa, Mount Tabor, the Nazareth range, with a house or two of that town visible, and Mount Hermon, rising behind the high ranges of northern Galilee, are all comprised in a prospect unrivalled in its panoramic extent and in the interest attached to the localities upon which the eye rests in every direction. I was some time picking out just the spot on which to camp, so many advantageous sites suggested themselves, but the paramount necessity of being near a village for security and supplies, and, above all, near a good spring, decided me in favour of my present location; and as the conditions under which I have brought a large party up to the top of this somewhat inaccessible mountain and planted them upon it are novel, I venture to think that an account of our experience may prove interesting.

      In the first place, the village itself was out of the question, partly because Arab houses, as a rule, do not consist of more than one room, and even when one has turned out their human inhabitants, it still remains tenanted by so many others of a carnivorous character, though minute in size, that existence becomes a burden; and partly because they are pervaded with a singular odour of burnt manure, which the natives use as fuel for the ovens in which they bake their bread, and which is too pungent to be agreeable to unsophisticated nostrils. After inhaling it for a month I have got rather to like it than otherwise.

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