w Year's Day, many of
the tunes sung there being the same as those used in the London
Synagogues. The portion of the Sacred Scriptures was admirably read
there by a young boy, "more in the German manner than in the
Portuguese." The Scroll of the Pentateuch was in a wooden case, over
which was the cloak, and the President called up as many as twenty to
hear the Law read to them. The day of Atonement and the Tabernacle
Holidays had to be spent here in consequence of the impossibility of
obtaining means of proceeding further. "I have still every desire,"
says Mr Montefiore, "to proceed to Jerusalem, but cannot find any
person willing to go with me. Although the plague was at Acre, the
whole of Syria in revolt, the Christians fleeing to the mountains for
safety, the question of peace or war still undecided, he himself ill,
and Mrs Montefiore by no means recovered from her recent attack, he
nevertheless determined at all risks to proceed to Jaffa and
Jerusalem." "I find," he observed to his anxious wife, "my health and
strength failing me so fast in this city, that I deem it now prudent
to flee from it, even at the chance of encountering the 'Greek
pirates.'" He engaged for this purpose the _Henry Williams_, a brig of
167 tons, under Captain Jones, to take them to Jaffa and bring them
back for L50.

"I think," he says, "I more ardently desire to leave Egypt than ever
our forefathers did. No one will ever recite the passover service"
(which gives an account of the exodus from Egypt) "with more true
devotion than I shall do, when it pleases Providence to restore me to
my own country, and redeem me and my dear wife from this horrible land
of misery and plague, the hand of God being still upon it."

These are expressions to which most persons in Egypt might frequently
give utterance, when in a state of great pain and irritation,
tormented by thousands of mosquitoes, and more especially when living
in small confined apartments like those of the casino then occupied by
Mr Montefiore. Only those who have been in Egypt fifty or sixty years
ago can form an idea of the discomfort a traveller then had to put up
with, and this was naturally keenly felt by those who, like Mr
Montefiore, had been used to every comfort and attention in an English
home.

_Tuesday, October 16th._--They arrive at Jaffa. The Governor at first
refused to allow any Franks to land, and ordered Captain Jones off,
but the British Consul having procured permissi