—_Taylor._ CHAPTER XX. Departure from Egypt.—A Poet in Palestine.—Difference in Travellers.—Mr. Taylor’s Appreciation.—First View of Tyre.—Route to Jerusalem.—The Holy City.—Bath in the Dead Sea.—Appearance of Jerusalem.—Samaria.—Looking down upon Damascus.—Life in the eldest City.—The Bath.—Dose of Hashish.—Being a Turk among Turks. “The Poet came to the Land of the East, When Spring was in the air: The earth was dressed for a wedding feast, So young she seemed, and fair; And the poet knew the Land of the East— His soul was native there. All things to him were the visible forms Of early and precious dreams,— Familiar visions that mocked his quest Beside the Western streams, Or gleamed in the gold of the clouds, unrolled In the sunset’s dying beams.” —_Taylor_, 1852. If there is any land where every grain of sand and every blade of grass is pervaded by thrilling associations, that land is Palestine. Especially and peculiarly animated are its hills and vales to a poet such as Taylor proved to be. It may be that some superficial and matter-of-fact people who have visited the Holy Land in the hot season, have not felt the charm of its sacredness, owing to heat, barrenness, vermin, and beggars. There may be a small class of iconoclastic jokers, who, caring not how holy or tender the theme, never fail to use it for ridicule, if it suits their humoristic purpose. But the large class of travellers who visit Jerusalem and the country round about, feel the inspiring presence of the Past, and enjoy in an indescribable fullness the associations connected with it. In a higher and nobler degree, the mind imbued with poetic images, a ready imagination, and a keen discernment of beauty in landscape or history, will avail itself of the great opportunities for pleasure and profit which such a land supplies. In this sense Mr. Taylor enjoyed a great advantage. He made his physical being so subordinate to his mental, that no fatigue, no hunger, no thirst, no annoyance from beggars, nor fears of robbers, could interfere with the appreciation of the beautiful. How greatly he enjoyed his visit to Palestine, none but intimate friends ever knew. In his letters, he often gave way to enthusiastic expressions, and in his book, often gave very vivid descriptions of what had been, as well as that which then existed. But a fear of exaggeration through praise, and a modest misgiving lest his poetical fancy should not suit his readers, led him to write in a more prosy vein than he talked. In conversation with friends in Germany and America, and often in his lectures, after he had finished his tours, he graphically pictured the impressive events of the past connected with Palestine, which seemed to pass like a panorama before him. To him, such a land would be full of interest, whether he trod its fields at a time of the year when it