Near the middle of the church, a wide flight of stairs descends for about twelve or fourteen feet; there stands an altar. Passing a door, we entered a small room, in which is another altar. On both of these, religious service appears at times to be performed. Passing through another door, we were in a low cave, that has been hewn out of the soft limestone rock. The wall on all sides is rough; made so, perhaps, by the pilgrims breaking off pieces of the rock to carry home as holy earth. This is shown as the room in which Mary lived and raised the infant Saviour. It did not appear to me a comfortable place for a residence; and I could not but think that Joseph must have loved his wife, and prized the privilege of raising the Messiah, to such a degree as to have induced him to provide for them a more suitable place. The whole appearance of the place was, in my view, against its being the true locality. We know they lived at Nazareth, but as to the precise spot, the Bible is silent, and we are left in doubt. They show the synagogue in which our Lord read the law; and, a little out of town, they show the precipice over which the enraged people wished to cast him. The situation of the town on the hill, and the height of the hill, agrees with the account recorded, but which is the precise spot may not be perfectly certain. They show also the shop in which Joseph followed his trade, with some other things that need not be specified. LETTER XVI. _Beyroot, Oct. 23d, 1836._ We left Nazareth by the same road that we entered it; but on reaching the top of the ridge north of the town we took a north-west direction into the plain which we had left, which is here broken with hills, and can hardly be said to be continuous. Some of these hills are very much covered with rocks. After a few miles we passed, on the top of a hill on our left, the ruins of Sefora, which was at one time a place of note. There is more natural growth on these hills than on those more to the east. This district is stony; but appears to have had more labour bestowed on it than most of those that are better adapted for cultivation. The plain of Zebulun, a little farther on, is separated from the great plain by some hills, which are, however, not very high. It is a most lovely and fertile district. On one side of it were many olive-trees, and a part of it was cultivated with cotton. The cotton appeared to have had but little labour bestowed on it, and promised a corresponding small return, notwithstanding the fertility of the plain. Between this place and the plain on the coast, and lying between Acre and the hills, we crossed a considerable distance that was hilly; the hills were not very high, but spread pretty generally over the face of the country. Most of them have more or less rocks on the surface, but, as a general thing, they are not so rocky as the country about Jerusalem. From this low hilly district we entered the plain which