of the Hittites and all their allies in a great battle at Carchemish.  That great mound of Carchemish needs to be thoroughly explored.  Already an English expedition has very carelessly just opened the hill and exposed, but not fairly published, some few as fine friezes as are to be found in the Assyrian capitals, with unread Hittite inscriptions, and a fine statue of the Hittite Venus; but much remains to reward the student of Oriental history and art.  At Senjirli a German expedition under Von Luschan has done more and better work, handsomely published, but this was a smaller Syrian town, and less was to be expected; and yet here, and near by, were found what was not expected, steles (upright slabs or pillars) with the portraits of kings in high relief, covered over with long inscriptions in Aramaic, the oldest and longest as yet discovered anywhere in that language.  It was a magnificent result of very moderate labor,—­Hittite friezes, Assyrian and Aramean inscriptions all in one little mound.  But for the most part we know the art and writing of the Hittites from what we have found above ground, in their towns and fortresses in the hills, for little digging has been done.  At Pterium was a principal sacred capital, and there, on a natural corridor of rock, they carved a procession of gods and kings and soldiers that excites the wonder of scholars.  As I write, the announcement comes that Professor Sayce has at last discovered the secret of the Hittite hieroglyphs, and we may hope that very soon it will be possible to read them.  But there is vastly more of their records yet to be disinterred.

And there remain the two lands most sacred and beloved in poetry and history,—­the land of Israel and the land of Homer.  It is amazing that so little search has been made to find out what is hidden under the soil of Palestine.  Scholars in plenty have walked over the top of it, and have told all that is on the surface, but almost nothing has been done underground, no such excavations as in Egypt or Assyria.  I do not forget that the English Palestine Exploration Fund has followed out, with trenches and tunnels, the walls of Jerusalem, nor that one or two old mounds have been partly explored.  But what is this to the great work that needs to be done?  There has been found on the surface the Moabite Stone, at the old capital of Dibon, a wonderful record of early kings mentioned in the Bible.  And there is the short account in the rock-cut conduit of Siloam, of the success of the workmen in the time of Hezekiah, who, beginning at the two ends, did the fine engineering feat of having their tunnels meet correctly in the solid rock.  But when Jerusalem is fully explored, and the northern capitals of Bethel and Tirzah and Samaria, and a hundred other mounds that mark the site of Jewish, Israelite, Philistine, and Amorite cities, we may expect marvellous discoveries that will illumine our Holy Scriptures.