"I'll try," Fred responded, and after a pause of some minutes he was ready to reply. He let his horse fall out of the line while thinking on the subject, and it is just possible he glanced into the guide-book he carried in his satchel. We may remark, by-the-way, that every traveller in the Holy Land has his guide-book in readiness, and if his memory is at fault at any time he has a good authority to refer to. It saves a vast amount of 'reading up;' and you sometimes find a man who makes a pretence of great learning, when the fact is he has been drawing freely from the portable authority in his possession. "Shiloh was the place where the tabernacle of the Lord was first set up permanently in Canaan," said Fred, "and the Israelites came here to receive their shares of the promised land. The infant Samuel was dedicated here to the Lord by his mother, and it was at Shiloh where Eli dropped dead when he heard his sons had been killed in battle. There was a festival here in honor of the ark. It was held every year; and once while the maidens were dancing at this festival the Benjamites rushed in suddenly and carried off two hundred of them. There were several other incidents of less importance in the history of Shiloh, and it seems to have been destroyed long before the beginning of the Christian era." "I know where you found all that," Frank whispered; "and you ought to be very grateful to the man who hunted it out for you: 'Murray's Guide,' page 312." "Quite right," replied Fred, "but some of it runs over on page 313." With this candid acknowledgment of a fact which many persons seek to conceal, or even do worse about, they changed the subject of conversation. The author has in his possession a book of travels by a prominent member of the Church, in which there are numerous pages and paragraphs taken bodily from other works, and especially from guide-books. Its writer even goes so far as to say that all measurements given in his book were made by himself, and can be relied upon. It is observable that he agrees exactly with the guide-book, even in two or three instances where the latter is known to be at fault; and yet that man would probably refuse to tell a falsehood for a dollar! [Illustration: STREET SCENE IN BIREH.]