Thus the Sephardím are the Southern, opposed to the Northern Jews, or Ashkenazím. These derive their name from Ashkenaz, son of Gomer, and grandson of Japhet (Gen. x. 3), who is supposed to have peopled, in ethnologic succession, Armenia (Jer. li. 27), Poland, Germany, and Scandinavia--the latter according to some derives from him its name. The Ashkenazím claim descent from Benjamin, and are generally supposed not to have been present at the second building of the Temple by Zorobabel (B.C. 520), as described in the Book of Ezra. The Ashkenazím of the Holy Land are chiefly Germans, Poles, Muscovites, and other Northerners. On January 26, 1849, an order from the Russian Consulate-General of Beyrut obliged them either to return home biennially in order to renew their passports or to give up their nationality. They were then taken under the protecting wing of Great Britain by the immense exertions of their co-religionists in the “City of Refuge” (London) and of other Western powers. This step can hardly be looked upon with satisfaction. Relying upon their new nationality, they addict themselves openly to usury and to other transactions of a doubtful and often of a dishonourable character. A determination to protect the whole community from religious persecution, allowing the Sultan to treat their commercial and civic affairs on the same footing as all the rest of his subjects, would be much more just, and would probably remedy not a few evils. In the year 1840 the Northern Jews mustered few at Damascus, and even now they are not numerous; among them may be mentioned old Abú Brahím, a well-known cicerone at Demitri Cara’s Hotel, who usually passed for a Cohen.