From under the Ras-el-Ain gushes forth the Fountain of Honey, so called from the sweetness and purity of the water.  We drank of it, and I found the taste very agreeable, but my companion declared that it had an unpleasant woolly flavor.  When we climbed a little higher, we found that the true source from which the fountain is supplied was above, and that an Arab was washing a flock of sheep in it!  We continued our walk along the side of the mountain to the other end of the city, through gardens of almond, apricot, prune, and walnut-trees, bound each to each by great vines, whose heavy arms they seemed barely able to support.  The interior of the town is dark and filthy; but it has a long, busy bazaar extending its whole length, and a cafe, where we procured the best coffee in Syria.

Nablous is noted for the existence of a small remnant of the ancient Samaritans.  The stock has gradually dwindled away, and amounts to only forty families, containing little more than a hundred and fifty individuals.  They live in a particular quarter of the city, and are easily distinguished from the other inhabitants by the cast of their features.  After our guide, a native of Nablous, had pointed out three or four, I had no difficulty in recognising all the others we met.  They have long, but not prominent noses, like the Jews; small, oblong eyes, narrow lips, and fair complexions, most of them having brown hair.  They appear to be held in considerable obloquy by the Moslems.  Our attendant, who was of the low class of Arabs, took the boys we met very unceremoniously by the head, calling out:  “Here is another Samaritan!” He then conducted us to their synagogue, to see the celebrated Pentateuch, which is there preserved.  We were taken to a small, open court, shaded by an apricot-tree, where the priest, an old man in a green robe and white turban, was seated in meditation.  He had a long grey beard, and black eyes, that lighted up with a sudden expression of eager greed when we promised him backsheesh for a sight of the sacred book.  He arose and took us into a sort of chapel, followed by a number of Samaritan boys.  Kneeling down at a niche in the wall, he produced from behind a wooden case a piece of ragged parchment, written with Hebrew characters.  But the guide was familiar with this deception, and rated him so soundly that, after a little hesitation, he laid the fragment away, and produced a large tin cylinder, covered with a piece of green satin embroidered in gold.  The boys stooped down and reverently kissed the blazoned cover, before it was removed.  The cylinder, sliding open by two rows of hinges, opened at the same time the parchment scroll, which was rolled at both ends.  It was, indeed, a very ancient manuscript, and in remarkable preservation.  The rents have been carefully repaired and the scroll neatly stitched upon another piece of parchment, covered on the outside with violet satin.  The priest informed me that it was written by the