TROUBLES OF THE JEWS.
pools outside the walls, and after examining them
as the so called works of Solomon, I had seen all a
stranger could see in Hebron.
I cannot leave this place, however, without a
word or two more. I had spent a long evening
with my Jewish friends. The old rabbi talked to
me of their prospects and condition, and told me
how he had left his country in Europe many years
before, and come with his wife and children to lay
their bones in the Holy Land. He was now
eighty years old ; and for thirty years, he said, he
had lived with the sword suspended over his head;
had been reviled, buffeted, and spit upon; and,
though sometimes enjoying a respite from persecu-
tion, he «ever knew at what moment the blood-
hounds might not be let loose upon him ; that,
since the country had been wrested from the sul-
tan by the Pacha of Egypt, they had been com-
paratively safe and tranquil ; though some idea
may be formed of this comparative security from
the fact, that during the revolution two years be-
fore, when Ibrahim Pacha, after having been pent
up several months in Jerusalem, burst out like a
roaring lion, the first place upon which his wrath
descended was the unhappy Hebron; and while
their guilty brethren were sometimes spared, the
unhappy Jews, never offending but always suffer-
ing, received the full weight of Arab vengeance.
Their houses were ransacked and plundered ; their
gold and silver, and all things valuable, carried
VOL. II.-P
pools outside the walls, and after examining them
as the so called works of Solomon, I had seen all a
stranger could see in Hebron.
I cannot leave this place, however, without a
word or two more. I had spent a long evening
with my Jewish friends. The old rabbi talked to
me of their prospects and condition, and told me
how he had left his country in Europe many years
before, and come with his wife and children to lay
their bones in the Holy Land. He was now
eighty years old ; and for thirty years, he said, he
had lived with the sword suspended over his head;
had been reviled, buffeted, and spit upon; and,
though sometimes enjoying a respite from persecu-
tion, he «ever knew at what moment the blood-
hounds might not be let loose upon him ; that,
since the country had been wrested from the sul-
tan by the Pacha of Egypt, they had been com-
paratively safe and tranquil ; though some idea
may be formed of this comparative security from
the fact, that during the revolution two years be-
fore, when Ibrahim Pacha, after having been pent
up several months in Jerusalem, burst out like a
roaring lion, the first place upon which his wrath
descended was the unhappy Hebron; and while
their guilty brethren were sometimes spared, the
unhappy Jews, never offending but always suffer-
ing, received the full weight of Arab vengeance.
Their houses were ransacked and plundered ; their
gold and silver, and all things valuable, carried
VOL. II.-P