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H. Bryer, Printer, Bridge-street, Blackfriars, London.

THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR JANUARY, 1822.

Art. 1. Travels in Palestine, through the Countries of Bashan and Gilead, East of the River Jordan: including a Visit to the Cities of Geraza and Gamala, in the Decapolis. By J. S. Buckingham, Member of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta, &c. 4to. pp. xxvi, 554. Price 31. 13s, 6d. London. 1821.

ALL that learned speculation and research could do to illus

trate the topography of Palestine, has been accomplished; and yet, after all the erudite labours of Reland and D'Anville, with all the light which the details of ancient and modern Travellers have thrown upon the subject, there is scarcely any part of the world, certainly none of comparable interest, respecting which our information is so meagre, perplexed, and unsatisfactory. Michaelis complained, that our travellers never venture across Jordan. Dr. Seetzen and Mr. Burckhardt are the only

*In one of the cells in the convent at the foot of Mount Sinai, Mr. Fazakerley, in 1811, found a paper giving the following account of Dr. Seetzen's journey through Palestine.

Le 9 d'Avril, 1807, U. 1. Seetzen, nommé Mousa, voyageur Allemand, M.D. &c. est venu visiter le couvent de la Sainte Cathe rine, les monts d'Horeb, et de Sinai, et de la Saint Catherine, après 'avoir parcouru toutes les provinces orientales anciennes de la Palestine; scavoir, Auranitis, Trachonitis, Gaulonitis, Paneas, Batanæa, Decapolis, Galaaditis, Ammonitis, Amorrhitis, Moabitis, jusqu'aux frontieres de la Gebalene (Idumæa), et après avoir fait deux fois P'entour de la Mer Morte, traversé le desert de l'Arabie Petreè, entre la ville d'Hebron et le Mont Sinai par un chemin jusquà ce temps lá inconnu. Après un séjour de dix jours il continuoit son voyage pour la ville de Suez.' This,' adds Mr. F., is rather pompous, but Dr. Seetzen is, unquestionably, a traveller of great enterprise. He has been seven or eight years in these countries, and his experience, and habits, and knowledge of Arabic, qualify him in a remarkable degree for the pursuits in which he is engaged. The Arabs know him well by the name of Mousa.'

[graphic]

Walpole's Travels in the East, p. 371.
B

Europeans who are known to have explored the trans-Jordanic provinces of Judea; both of whom have died without leaving any records of their discoveries in those parts. But even with

The

regard to the more familiar tract, the high road of pilgrimage, and more especially Jerusalem itself, the little that there is to know, is so obscured by varying testimony and legendary fiction, that our maps are half hypothesis, while two thirds of what has been written in description is no better than romance. peculiar difficulties, arising from the nature of the country and its political and moral condition, with which travellers have to contend, in part account for the imperfect shape which their information assumes. Few have had leisure or license to make the requisite researches which they would have been disposed to institute; and so little is there in the present aspect of the country to tempt the Christian traveller to linger in even the most sacred localities, that he generally appears to be as eager to escape from Jérusalem, as if the ghost of Saladin were chasing him back to the sea. This dislike to the Holy City is pretty general, according to Mr. Buckingham's testimony, among even the Catholic fraternities. Bad as Damascus is for Christians, said a young friar, I would rather remain ten years there, than be condemned to pass five in Jerusalem.' It was from necessity that our Author remained there so long as a week. Nearly the whole of his route was imposed upon him by untoward circumstances or prudential considerations. It is only a rapid survey, therefore, which he has given us of a country which might seem to invite the most patient research; and in many instances, he has done little more than give a fresh impulse to the scepticism which Dr. Clarke had already awakened respecting the identity of the sacred places. Yet, his volume is both interesting and valuable in more than an ordinary degree. He has been enabled to suggest some important corrections of geographical errors, and to add considerably to our knowledge of the more distant and less frequented regions.

Strange as it may sound, it is not in Palestine that we must seek for illustrations of Scripture, derived from the manners and customs of the present race of natives. The traveller in Persia, Arabia, or even Abyssinia, will collect far richer materials for this purpose in the familiar objects every where presented to him, than he can possibly do in posting through the once sacred territory, which has been swept and wasted by successive hordes of Pagan, Christian, Saracen, and Turk, till its identity seems almost equivocal. Its present destitute and barren aspect is not more at variance with our ideas of its ancient fertility, than the motley tribes of intruders by whom it is overrun, differ from its once favoured possessors. Now,' says an English pilgrim who visited it in 1600, being inhabited by infidels that profane

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