hills between two precipitous cliffs up the side of one of these cliffs the road winds; on the summit of the cliff there stands a ruined chapel. Through the arches of that chapel, from the very edge of the mountain range, the traveller looks down on the plain of Damascus. It is here seen in its widest and fullest perfection, with the visible explanation of the whole secret of its great and enduring charm, that which it must have had when it was the solitary seat of civilization in Syria, and which it will have as long as the world lasts. The river with its green banks is seen at the bottom, rushing through the cleft; it bursts forth, and, as if in a moment, scatters over the plain, through a circle of thirty miles, the same verdure which had hitherto been confined to its single channel. It is like the bursting of a shell-the eruption of a volcano; but an eruption not of death, but of life.

Far and wide in front extends the level plain, its horizon bare, its lines of surrounding hills bare, all bare far away on the road to Palmyra and Bagdad. In the midst of this plain lies at our feet the vast lake or island of deep verdure, walnuts and apricots waving above, corn and grass below; and in the midst of this mass of foliage rises-striking out its white arms of streets hither and thither, and its white. minarets above the trees which embosom them-the city of Damascus. On the right towers the snowy height of Hermon, overlooking the whole scene; close behind are the sterile limestone mountains: so that one stands literally between the living and the dead;

and the ruined arches of the ancient chapel, which serve as a centre and framework to the prospect and retrospect, still preserve the magnificent story which, whether fact or fiction, is well worthy of this sublime view.

Here, hard by the sacred heights of Salhîyeh, consecrated by the caverns and tombs of a thousand Mussulman saints, the Prophet is said to have stood, whilst yet a camel-driver from Mecca, and, after gazing on the scene below, to have turned away without entering the city. "Man," he said, "can have but one paradise, and my paradise is fixed above!" It is this grand aspect of Damascus which at once reveals the long-sustained antiquity of the city. Its situation secured its perpetuity: the first seat of man in leaving, the last on entering, the wide desert of the East. There may be other views in the world more beautiful; there can hardly be another at once so beautiful and so instructive. "This is indeed worth all the toil and danger it has cost me to come here," was the speech of the distinguished historian [Henry Thomas Buckle] whose premature death at Damascus almost immediately afterwards gave a mournful significance to his words.

Man is his own star, and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man
Commands all light, all influence, all fate;
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,

Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.-Fletcher.

65. ADDRESS TO A MUMMY.

And hast thou walked about (how strange a story!) In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago, When the Memnonium was in all its glory,

And time had not begun to overthrow Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous, Of which the very ruins are tremendous ?

Speak! for thou long enough hast acted Dummy. Thou hast a tongue; come, let us hear its tune. Thou'rt standing on thy legs, above-ground, Mummy! Revisiting the glimpses of the moon ;

Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures, But with thy bones and flesh, and limbs and features.

Tell us for doubtless thou canst recollect—
To whom should we assign the Sphinx's fame?
Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect

Of either pyramid that bears his name?

Is Pompey's Pillar really a misnomer?

Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer?

Perhaps thou wert a Mason, and forbidden

By oath to tell the secrets of thy trade; Then say what secret melody was hidden

In Memnon's statue which at sunrise played? Perhaps thou wert a Priest; if so, my struggles. Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles.

Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat,

Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass;

Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat,

Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass;

Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,

A torch at the great Temple's dedication.

EGYPTIAN MUMMY. FROM AN ANCIENT PAPYRUS.

With two gods in the form of birds, and vases, writing tablet, etc., beneath.

(By permission from the large facsimile plate of the "Book of the Dead," published by the Department of Oriental Antiquities, British Museum.)