The inhabitants of Nazareth, like those of Bethlehem, are deservedly famed for their personal beauty. I was fortunate enough to be present at the wedding festivities of a wealthy landed proprietor in the town. The bride, unfortunately, was absolutely ugly; but I was greatly struck by the fine features of many of the women and the noble bearing of the men. Dr. Porter says truly, “If we go out and sit for an hour of an evening by the little fountain, we shall see many a face which Raphael might have chosen as a study when about to paint his _Madonna della Seggiola_, and many a figure that Phidias might have selected as a model for Venus.” Monkish legends and traditions of course are rife throughout the town and neighbourhood. Always offensive, they are doubly so here, both from their absurdity and from the contrast they afford to the silence of Scripture respecting the youth and early manhood of our Lord. We are shown the workshop of Joseph, the house of Mary, and the place from which it was carried away to find its final resting-place at Loretto! A cave is pointed out as the place of the Annunciation. A large slab of stone is declared to be the table at which our Lord and His disciples ate before and after the Resurrection. The traditional Mount of Precipitation is two miles away from the town in defiance of the express statement of Scripture that it was on “the brow of the hill on which the city was built.”[240] [Illustration: NAZARETH.] The fountain of Mary at the eastern end of the town is a place of deep interest. At all hours of the day groups of girls may be seen who have come hither to draw water. It is the common centre around which the whole life of the village gathers. The pilgrim stops to quench his thirst, the shepherd to water his flocks, the girls, with merry song and laughter, fill their pitchers, linger for a gossip with their friends, then poising the vessel upon their shoulders, walk away with light and graceful step. The fountain has been here from time immemorial, and seems always to have been the main, if not the only source of water-supply for the inhabitants. It was to the fountain, which now bears her name, that Mary came, day by day, amongst the village maidens, to fill her pitcher and return to her home. The _Protevangelion_, one of the earliest of the Apocryphal gospels, says that it was here that she received the angelic salutation which marked her out as the mother of the Lord. The narrative however seems to indicate what the probabilities of the case imply, that the event happened in the seclusion of her own dwelling. [Illustration: CLIFF BEHIND THE MARONITE CONVENT AT NAZARETH.]