The work of Dr. Thomson, which the present edition is designed to make more generally known to Bible students, carries us over a part of Southern Syria and over Palestine, but in a direction opposite to that pursued by most travelers. Palestine is commonly entered from the south; and Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem are among the first places visited by tourists. Dr. Thomson enters it from the north, and the places which other travelers usually visit first are kept by him to the end. In the first part of the following work the scene is laid at the foot of Lebanon, along the coast of Phenicia, which, though included in the land promised to Abraham, was not, in point of fact, possessed by the Jews. From Tyre we are conducted, in the pleasant pages of Dr. Thomson, across the NORTHERN BOUNDARY OF PALESTINE; and after gazing on the snowcapped Hermon, visiting the sites of Dan, and Caesarea Philippi, and the sources of the Jordan, we pass through UPPER GALILEE, and return to the sea at the BAY OF ACRE. There we spend some time in the survey of a neighborhood memorable in all history, ancient and modern. Again we strike eastwards, and cross to the LAKE OF GALILEE, walking right round the shores which were so familiar to Jesus. Leaving them, we again turn westwards, till we reach the scene of his childhood, NAZARETH. From Nazareth we strike into the famous plain of ESDRAELON, survey the heights of Tabor, Hermon, and Gilboa, visit Endor and Shunem, and other places famed in Old Testament history; and crossing the Kishon and the ridge of Carmel, come again on the sea at the ruins of CAESAREA PALESTINA.
From this ancient Roman capital of Palestine we proceed along the seashore, with the plain of SHARON and the mountains of Samaria on our left; leaving which we enter the plain of PHILISTIA, flanked in like manner by the mountains of Judah. From the cities of the Philistines we strike up, like Samson with the gates of Gaza on his back, to HEBRON, on the top of the great ridge that runs along central Palestine; then through the WILDERNESS OF JUDAH, to the northern edge of the DEAD SEA, JORDAN, and JERICHO. From Jericho we advance along the same wild path which was traversed by Jesus on his last journey to Jerusalem, pausing like him at BETHANY, before entering the sacred city. Having conducted us through JERUSALEM, and some of the most celebrated localities in its neighborhood, Dr. Thomson takes his leave, after having given us an amount of information on the manners of the country, and thrown a degree of light on the meaning of Scripture, unexampled, we do not hesitate to say, in the pages of any other writer.