and gloating on their triumph
over the brave. There is something fatal in these crowded cities. Faith
flourishes in solitude.'

He threw himself upon the couch, and, leaning down his head, seemed lost
in meditation. He started up, and, seizing his tablets, wrote upon them
these words:

'Honain, I have been the whole night like David in the wilderness of
Ziph; but, by the aid of the Lord, I have conquered. I fly from this
dangerous city upon his business, which I have too much neglected.
Attempt not to discover me, and accept my gratitude.'

CHAPTER VI.

_The Learned Rabbi Zimri._

A SCORCHING sun, a blue and burning sky, on every side lofty ranges of
black and barren mountains, dark ravines, deep caverns, unfathomable
gorges! A solitary being moved in the distance. Faint and toiling, a
pilgrim slowly clambered up the steep and stony track.

The sultry hours moved on; the pilgrim at length gained the summit of
the mountain, a small and rugged table-land, strewn with huge masses
of loose and heated, rock. All around was desolation: no spring, no
herbage; the bird and the insect were alike mute. Still it was the
summit: no loftier peaks frowned in the distance; the pilgrim stopped,
and breathed with more facility, and a faint smile played over his
languid and solemn countenance.

He rested a few minutes; he took from his wallet some locusts and wild
honey, and a small skin of water. His meal was short as well as simple.
An ardent desire to reach his place of destination before nightfall
urged him to proceed. He soon passed over the table-land, and commenced
the descent of the mountain. A straggling olive-tree occasionally
appeared, and then a group, and soon the groups swelled into a grove.
His way wound through the grateful and unaccustomed shade. He emerged
from the grove, and found that he had proceeded down more than half
the side of the mountain. It ended precipitously in a dark and narrow
ravine, formed on the other side by an opposite mountain, the lofty
steep of which was crested by a city gently rising on a gradual slope.

Nothing could be conceived more barren, wild, and terrible than the
surrounding scenery, unillumined by a single trace of culture. The city
stood like the last gladiator in an amphitheatre of desolation.

It was surrounded by a lofty turreted wall, of an architecture to which
the pilgrim was unaccustomed: gates with drawbridge and portcullis,
square towers, and loopholes fo