NOZRANI IN EGYPT AND SYRIA.
Noznani" means "Nazarene" ; and the author had better have said "The Nazarene" at once. He is the Reverend Thomas Wilson, one of the ministers of the church of St. Peter's Mancroft, in Norwich. Mr. Wilson has an ardent love of travelling, which he has extensively indulged ; but his last journey has been of the nature of a religious pilgrimage, prompted by a wish, dated from the spelling of his first Bible lesson, that his feet should stand within the gates of Jerusalem. He has published this volume, too, with a pious object—that of improving the interior of St. Peter's Mancroft, which is one of the noblest parish-churches in England, and rendering it more fit for a place of public Christian worship. To raise a fund for this purpose, he read a series of lectures last season on various subjects—one of them, Eastern Travel ; and to this fund the profits of the publication before us are to be a further contribution.
The track of the reverend traveller has been over beaten ground, Af- fording him no matter whatever for novelty of information or descrip- tion. Yet his book is not destitute of freshness, derived from the genial and enthusiastic character of the writer, the graphic truth of his pictures, and the habitual train of thought which associated the objects before him with the history of his faith. He first visited Egypt ; made an ex- cursion up the Nile into the less known country of Nubia ; explored the shores of the Red Sea; and, having returned to Cairo, travelled through Syria, to Jerusalem, the great object of his pilgrimage ; whence he made jonrnies to the Dead Sea, Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, and the other most remarkable localities of Scripture story. A few extracts will show that the purchasers of the book, besides contributing to the good work of church-improvement in Norwich, may expect pleasant though grave reading.
CONTRASTS BETWEEN THE EAST AND THE WEST.
The rule of contradiction seems to prevail between East and West wherever there is room to differ. I have somewhere seen a curious parallel of opposition, which might be carried to an amusing length: e.g. they read and write from right to left—we from left to right; they shave the hair of the head and let beard and moustache grow—we let the hair of the head grow and shave both beard and moustache; we take off our hats in church—they take off their shoes; we sit On chairs—they recline on cushions; we eat with knife and fork—they prefer finger and thumb; we dance with steps of the feet—they dance with gestures of the body; our clothes are tight and buttoned—theirs loose and tied; we calculate by the sun—they calculate by the moon we ride with straight legs—they with knees up to the chin • our necks are enveloped and heads bare—their necks are bare and heads enveloped; their code, abjuring wine, pork, and things strangled, permits polygamy—our code, permitting wine, pork, and things strangled, abhors poly- gamy. Thus, in religion, morals, politics, literature, and life, we hate, despise, oppose, misunderstand, and misrepresent each other.
THE GREAT PYRAMID.
Our first expedition is to the top of the great pyramid of Cheops. Standing upon lower ground than that of Cephrenes, but in itself somewhat loftier, the perpendicular height is about five hundred feet; and its base is said to equal the area of Lincoln's Inn Fields, following the line of houses. The material is lime- stone, much worn and shaken by time and violence. The steps, i.e. the successive layers or tiers of massive blocks which constitute the pyramid, are not less than two feet high, and require what the French call a bon arret to ascend without assistance; which is, however, always at hand; my friend and myself being obliged to show much energy in our determination to trust to our own legs, for our Arab satellites, urged in their zeal for the service by inordinate love of ink- sheesh, and, skipping like chamois on a mountain, unencumbered with any gar- ment expressible or inexpressible, were resolutely bent on lifting, dragging, and shoving us ap the steep, after a fashion which was anything but dignified, though ough doubtless very safe. Two little blue-robed bare-footed damsels, with porous earthen pitchers of delicious water from the Nile, were far more gentle and wel- come auxiliaries; and the " baksheesh," modestly murmured and fairly earned, was an appeal from the gazelle-eyed maidens too jest and powerful to be resisted. Pausing half-way on the tremendous slope, we looked up and looked down on the piled mountain above and below us with a feeling of awe approaching to dread, though the footing is broad enough to insure safety to any one not cursed with a very topsy-turvy imagination: but here we shudder at the thought of the Eng- lishman who, missing his hold on the first step, fell, and rolled and bounded, a bloody, braised, and broken mummy, down that Brobdignagian staircase. This, of course, is a grand story for the guides; and, whether true or not, produces its impression then and there: his friend saw him stumble, caught the last glare of agony from his starting eyeballs, and heard the shriek of despair as the clutched fingers grasped and lost their hold upon the stone. An order has since been issued that no stranger shall climb the pyramids unattended by Arab guides.
VIEW OF JERUSALEM.
The room that I occupy looks upon a court, from which a flight of steps leads to a flat roof; and here, once more before the day closes, I spread the map and open the compass. Thanks to the plan of Sieber and atherwood, taken out of Dr. Robinson's book and secured upon pasteboard, one needs no guide, no vulgar gabbling cicerone, with his got-up sing-song of stupid lies: here we have Jerusa- lem before as and below us, with every hill, every valley, every tower, dome, and minaret, marked and named in truth and soberness. The city from this Western ' point is seen in its whole extent, magnificently lighted up by the sun sinking be- hind us: its aspect is of the stern severe grandeur that so well becomes the stu- pendous and awful deeds of which it has been the centre; no sound or sight of gayety or gentleness, no stir of traffic—no throng or hum of the busy human hive; silent, massive, and solitary within—wild, barren, and desolate without. The dome of the Christian church which marks the Holy Sepulchre rises scarcely a hundred yards from where we stand. Close by are the Greek and Cop- tic convents. Beyond them, South of the church, the large open space marked as the ruined palace of the once powerful Knights of St. John. These sites, with the Armenian and Syrian convents, and our own Episcopal church, whose walls have not yet risen, are all that by name or profession or worship bear witness to the gospel of Christ in the city where He taught, over which He wept, where He was crucified, dead, and buried, rising again the third day, to ascend into Heaven and sit at the right hand of God! How hard to realize is the conviction that here has been appointed, from the foundation of the world, the scene of these-in- scrutable and ineffable mysteries!
The coup-d'ceil of the city is altogether unlike any other that I have yet seen. i The predominant character is ponderous gloom; the heavy grey stone houses are all flat-roofed, surmounted as at Hebron by white domes, the number of which strikes the eye as the leading peculiarity in the style of architecture. Several extensive spaces are cleared and deserted; but no trees, no birds, no verdure, no softening embellishment. if there be beauty in Jerusalem, or in the hills that stand round about her, it is the sublime beauty of stern endurance: "for Jere= hem is ruined"—" her house is left unto her desolate."
" sun o'er her head the clouds of sorrow roll, And God's revenge sits heavy on her soul."
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