Provided, on such novel security, with funds requisite for a prolonged tour in the East, he was absent upwards of ten months, and turned the time to account with characteristic assiduity. The late President of Queen’s College, Belfast, the Rev. Dr. J. Leslie Porter, who, as a traveller in Palestine, was familiar with the scenes embraced in Mr. Nelson’s tour, and repeatedly conversed with him on points of mutual interest, remarks:--“He did not as a rule enter into detailed descriptions of the localities he had visited. His chief desire apparently was to elicit from those with whom he talked the fullest information, as if to add to or correct his own impressions. One thing particularly struck me: his questions were all pertinent and exactly to the point. He showed a talent in obtaining exactly the information he wished such as I have never known equalled, except in the case of one person. He could glean a wonderful amount of knowledge in a very brief period. He had himself been a close and accurate observer. He knew exactly the points which, from want of time or opportunity, he had not been able perfectly to grasp, and he put his questions in a form that brought out every particle of information the person he addressed could give. “Of Damascus Mr. Nelson spoke with great enthusiasm. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘richness, beauty, and fertility are there. Where,’ he asked, ‘was the scene of Paul’s conversion? Was it near the east gate, where tradition has located it?’ I pointed out that this could scarcely be, as Paul was on his way from Jerusalem, and the road from the Holy City approaches Damascus from the opposite side. He next inquired whether there was still any tradition of Abraham; and he was very much interested when I told him that a few miles to the north there is still a shrine, at the foot of the hills, called the prayer-place of Abraham. ‘Is not that,’ he said, ‘a proof of the tenacity with which even the oldest traditions cling to the country?’ There was much in this; and he seemed to feel, as others have felt, that it may be used as an argument in favour of the truth of the early Christian traditions regarding the holy places of Jerusalem and other cities in Palestine. He asked much about the leprosy. ‘Did any tradition of it exist in Damascus?’ I remember well how deeply he seemed to be impressed when I told him that a short distance outside the east gate there were the remains of a very ancient building, called Naaman’s House, and that a portion of it was still used as a leper hospital. He said to me, ‘I looked for the Straight Street, mentioned in connection with the conversion of St. Paul, but could see no trace of it.’ Then I told him the results of more recent researches; how they had brought to light the position and character of that great street which ran through the city from the east to the west gate, and had on each side a double row of columns, fragments of which can still be seen in the houses and courts adjoining.”