on either side the meandering rivers, broken up by salt marshes and great pools, and thickly bestrewn with ruins, which come far up the slope of the southern hill, where fine fragments of houses and temples peep out from among the thickets and brushwood.

It is hardly possible to walk among the pools and marshes below, but on the hill side there can still be found the great amphitheatre, a place shaped like an enormous horse-shoe, cut out in galleries, mounting higher and higher one behind the other, all in the solid rock, and looking down into an open flat place beneath, to which the well-marked race-course leads up. Bits of square towers and remains of gateways show the old inclosure of the city to have been very large; but where men once swarmed to the marketplace, or the harbour, there now is scarcely a living thing. Eagles sweep round the heights, and have their nests in the crags, white sea-birds float high or low between the blue sea and blue sky, tall lonely herons stand on one leg in the marsh, watching for fish, jackals prowl and howl at night, and by day perhaps little flocks of silky-haired goats, or fat-tailed sheep, are driven out to pasture by brown half-naked children. If the little shepherds were asked where they lived, and were not too shy to answer at all, they would point to some huts on a hill a little way off, and would say, "Ayasaluk."

And what is the meaning of Ayasaluk?* The people who use the word little understand it, for they

* Some explain it as Asalook, the city of the moon, meaning the same as Ephesus, but this is not so probable.

are only Turkish peasants; but even they own by the very word by which they call their abode that a great man once dwelt there. For Ayasaluk is an alteration of the Greek words Hagios Theologos, and these mean Holy Divine, or writer upon the things. concerning God.

When those ruins were upright, when those walls with their square towers and deep gateways stood in all their strength, guarded by resolute Roman sentries, when the harbour was crowded with ships from all ports, when that amphitheatre was fitted with marble benches, and thronged with spectators, when the valleys and slopes of the hill stood thick with goodly dwellings and swarmed with busy crowds, who would have believed that the only name that would remain to mark the spot was that of one aged fisherman, the son of a hated people, without a country or a home-for the terrible destruction of the city of his fathers was still fresh in the memory of all men?

What? would they have said, should the time ever come that they should be beholden to an old exile for a title for their great city of Ephesus, calied by all men the Eye of Asia, and containing the wonder of the world, the temple of the great goddess Artemis, or Diana, whose image had fallen down from heaven itself, and after whom the city was often called the Guardian of the Goddess?

That image was their pride. The whole temple was centred round a small cell, where it stood in a shrine inclosed by a rich curtain. Round the ceil

were colonnades of pillars, each sixty feet high, and of beautiful marble, and of jasper, porphyry, and all that was precious, each given by a king. There were 127 of these ranged in an oblong form, making a double rank, not roofed over; but within these was another parallelogram of pillars which were roofed with cedar, and contained a building with doors of cedar wood, and a staircase made from a single vine of the isle of Cyprus. Altars smoked in front of this building, beautiful statues adorned the colonnades, on the pillars many a brave soldier had hung his own weapons or those he had taken from the enemy, treasures from all the East were heaped in the chambers round the cell, and within was the goddess-shown on a few rare and festive occasions to favoured worshippers.

What was she like? Was she a lovely statue or a beautiful huntress-queen, crowned with the crescent moon, the quiver at her back, the bow in her hand, the fawn at her side, carved by the choicest art in ivory, as might have befitted the dweller in the innermost shrine of the noblest temple in the world? No, -she was a little rude lump of black stone, the part from the waist downward not shaped at all, and the upper part merely carved out into a head, a pair of arms, and an immense number of teats, supposed to express that she nourished the whole earth like a mother; and there were strange old letters carved. on her.

Nothing could well be uglier; but this frightful figure had been worshipped at Ephesus long before

history or recollection began, and it was therefore thought to have been made in heaven, and sent down by the father of the gods for the Ephesians to guard and worship. They had thought no cost over much for such a treasure; and, while they were building their temple, and looking for marble beautiful enough for it, it so happened that two rams, in a flock of sheep that were feeding on the mountain side, began to fight, and one trying to butt at the other, missed him, and, striking against a rock with his horns, tore away the crust that had overgrown it, and showed beneath the purest white marble. The shepherd ran into the city with the tidings, and the marble proved to be so valuable that he was ever after called Evangelus, or the messenger of good tidings, and a statue was set up to him in the temple.

The temple built of that marble was so exquisitely beautiful as to rank among the seven wonders of the world. And when it was burnt down, on the night of the birth of Alexander the Great, that which has been described was built up with still greater splendour. Multitudes of priests and priestesses conducted the worship; the former were among the richest and most leading people of the city, and the priestesses, who were called the melissa or bees, were held in high honour, and had crowds of slaves under them. Grand festivals took place there, in the month of May, which was called Artemisium, in honour of the goddess, when the amphitheatre was crowded with spectators, who listened to hymns sung, watched plays performed, or applauded matches in running, wrestling, or the

like, all in honour of the great Artemis; and the noblest men in the country took it in turn to preside over these feasts as Asiarchs. All round the temple dwelt persons who dealt in scrolls bearing the letters of the image. By these all sorts of spells were wrought, and they were thought to secure good luck. Deep study was expended, and many scrolls written, on these rude letters scratched on the black stone, and many magic arts depended on them. Kings spoke the words in the extremity of danger, and to carry copies of them about the person was thought to prevent defeat. There was a perfect school of conjurors and magicians, who reaped no small gain in the month of the goddess. It was a festival for the whole world. Rich men came from far and wide to offer their gifts, conquerors hung up their spoils, those who had made their vows paid them. The building was the favourite pattern for other temples to the goddess, and the chief trade of the inhabitants was making little silver, ivory, or even gold, models of the temple, to be sold to the many pilgrims to the shrine. The temple and the goddess were marked on the coins of the city, and Diana of the Ephesians was the glory of the East.

Where is the temple now? You may look in vain among the ruins of Ephesus. Not the least trace can be found. A few of the columns may be found in distant lands, but the site of the building is lost. And as to the true Evangelus of Ephesus, ne is, indeed, a shepherd who taught how the Temple may be built of pure stones of the Living Rock; and he