his slender costume. His arms have been deposited outside the Turkish wall;
and as he looks back, his meagre, ferocious aspect, flanked by that
tangled web of hair, stamps him the roving tenant of the desert. It is
curious to find in this remote country a custom similar to that of the
fiery cross, which in old times summoned the Celtic tribes to arms. On the
alarm of invasion, a branch, torn by the priest from the _nebek_, (a tree
bearing a fruit like the Siberian crab,) is lighted in the fire, the flame
is then quenched in the blood of a newly slaughtered ram. It is then sent
forth with a messenger to the nearest clan. Thus, great numbers are
assembled with remarkable promptitude. In the invasion under Ibrahim Pasha,
sixteen thousand of these wild warriors were assembled from one tribe.
They crept into the Egyptian camp by night, and, using only their daggers,
made such formidable slaughter, that the Pasha was glad to escape by a
precipitate retreat.

The Jews form an important part of the population, as artizans and
manufacturers. Feeling the natural veneration for the Chosen People in all
their misfortunes, and convinced that the time will come when those
misfortunes will be obliterated, it is highly gratifying to find, that
even in this place of their ancient sufferings, they are beginning to feel
the benefit of British protection. Hitherto, through their indefatigable
industry, having acquired opulence in Arabia as elsewhere, they were
afraid either to display or to enjoy it; but now, under the protection of
the British flag, they not merely enjoy their wealth, but they publicly
practise the rights of their religion. Stone slabs with Hebrew
inscriptions mark the place of their dead. They have schools for the
education of their children; and their men and women, arrayed in their
holiday apparel, sit fearlessly in the synagogue, and listen to the
reading of the law and the prophets, as of old. It is a great source of
gratification to the philanthropist to find, that wherever England extends