are desolate, and in perfect repair, and
quotes the proper text of Scripture in which their desolation is
foretold, and their number and strength not exaggerated. Yet he fails,
with all this, to describe any one place completely, and is of opinion
that he should weary his reader in recounting, at Bozrah, for example,
"the wonders of art and architecture, and the curiosities of votive
tablet, and dedicatory inscription on altar, tomb, church, and temple";
whereas we must confess that nothing would have pleased us better than
to hear about all these things, with ever so much minuteness, and that
we should have been willing to take two passages of prophecy instead of
twenty, if we might have had the omitted description in the place of
them. But Mr. Porter being made as he is, we are glad to get out of him
what we can, and have to thank him for a full account of at least one of
the houses of the Rephaim, in which he passed a night.

"The walls were perfect, nearly five feet thick, built of large blocks
of hewn stones, without lime or cement of any kind. The roof was formed
of large slabs of the same black basalt, lying as regularly, and jointed
as closely as if the workmen had only just completed them. They measured
twelve feet in length, eighteen inches in breadth, and six inches in
thickness. The ends rested on a plain stone cornice, projecting about a
foot from each side wall. The chamber was twenty feet long, twelve wide,
and ten high. The outer door was a slab of stone, four and a half feet
high, four wide, and eight inches thick. It hung upon pivots formed of
projecting parts of the slab, working in sockets in the lintel and
threshold; and though so massive, I was able to open and shut it with
ease. At one end of the room was a small window with a stone shutter. An
inner door, also of stone, but of finer workmanship, and not quite so
heavy as the other, admitted to a chamber of the same size and
appearance. From it a much larger door communicated with a third
chamber, to which there was a descent by a flight of stone steps. This
was a spacious hall, equal in width to the two rooms, and about
twenty-five feet long by twenty high. A semicircular arch was thrown
across it, supporting the stone roof; and a gate, so large that camels
could pass in and out, opened on the street. The gate was of stone, and
in its place; but some rubbish had accumulated on the threshold, and it
appeared to have been open for ages. Here our hor