THE interest surrounding that limited portion of Western Asia which modern writers agree to call by its classical name of PALESTINE, is wholly unparalleled both in nature and degree. The love of the Swiss for their native mountains, or the Scotsman’s attachment to the land of brown heath and shaggy wood,’ affords but a faint type of that glowing and reverent affection with which Christians of every race and nation have constantly regarded their more than Fatherland—the birthplace of their faith and hope. The devotion which once drew pilgrims to its venerable metropolis,—to them the geographical centre of the globe,—established hermits amidst its rocky solitudes, and inspired the grand but reckless fanaticism of Crusaders, finds its modern counterpart in a growing and intelligent interest in all that concerns the Holy Land, its history and topography, its past and present inhabitants, and its vegetable and animal productions. Science has taken the place of superstition; and without the loss of true reverence, sacred sites, long encircled with the delusive halo of legend and romance, are measured and mapped out by the careful hand of the surveyor.