SAFED is situated on an isolated peak, which rises steeply from the southern brow of the mountain-range. A deep glen sweeps round its northern and western sides, and a shallower one, after skirting the eastern side, falls into the former a few miles to the S. Beyond these, on the N.E., N., and W. are higher hills, but on the S. the view is unimpeded. The old castle crowns the peak; the Jewish quarter of the town clings to the steep western side considerably below the summit, the rows of houses looking at a distance like stairs. There are besides 2-Muslem quarters, separated by the nature of the ground ; one occupying the ridge to the S., and the other nestling in the valley to the E. The Pop. may be estimated at about 4000 souls, of whom one-third are Jews and a very few families Christians. The only attraction of Safed is the splendid view it commands. The first race of the traveller will therefore be to the summit of the old castle. It is surrounded by a deep, dry ditch, within which was a strong wall. All is now a mass of ruins, Only a solitary shattered fragment of one of the great round towers has survived the horrors of the earthquake of 1837. Before that catastrophe it was not in the best repair, still it afforded ample accommodation to the governor and his numerous train; but then, in a few minutes, it was utterly ruined and many of its inmates buried beneath the fallen towers. That lst of Jan. 1837, was indeed a day of horror and woe to all Safed. Tremendous shocks made the whole hill tremble; more than three-fourths of the houses of the town were prostrated, and nearly five thousand of the inhabitants killed! The poor Jews suffered most. Their houses, huddled together and clinging to the steep declivity, were dashed down by the first shock—those above falling on those lower down, and thus heaping ruin upon ruin. It was estimated that 4000 of them perished. Many were killed instantaneously by the falling houses; others were engulfed and died a miserable death before they could be dug out ; some were extricated even after 5 or 6 days, covered with wounds and bruises, fainting with hunger and thirst, and only able to take a last look at the little remnant of their brethren ere they died. Here and there rents are still shown in the earth made by the earthquake ; but we have no need to search for traces of it, they are but too conspicuous in the ruins round us, and in many a shattered and deserted dwelling away in the town below.

But we turn our eyes to the glorious panorama; and we do not wonder as we look that imaginative interpreters should have made this the “city set upon an hill which cannot be hid’’( Matt. v. 14). The whole land is before us, from the Haurin mountains on the eastern horizon to the ridge of Samaria on the south-western. The most striking features of the scene are, first, the vast plateau of the Jaulân and Haurân, stretching from the high eastern bank of the Jordan valley far into the Arabian desert. This is the ancient kingdom of Bashan. Beyond it is a blue mountain-ridge, with one conspicuous peak near its centre, called by the Arabs el-Kuleib, “the Little Heart ;” and just at the southern end of the ridge we can easily make out with a glass a conical hill surmounted by a castle—that is Saleah, and it marks the eastern boundary of Bashan (Josh. xiii.11). Second, the deep basin of the Sea of Tiberias, lying nearly 2500 ft. below us; and third, the rounded top of Tabor.

Safed is a modern city, at least we have no proof of its antiquity. The first mention of it is in the Vulgate version of the book of Tobit. Modern tradition has made it the site of the Bethulia of the book of Judith, but without a shadow of evidence. The castle seems to have been founded by the crusaders to guard their territory against the inroads of the Saracens on the east. It was garrisoned by the Knights Templars. Its defences, both natural and artificial, were so strong that Saladin besieged it for 5 weeks before he was able to capture it. After lying in ruins for many years it was rebuilt by Benedict, bishop of Marseilles, in the year 1240. But it only remained some 20 years in the hands of the Christians, for, being hard pressed by Sultan Bibars, the garrison capitulated and were murdered to a man, their chiefs being even flayed alive by the barbarous Mohammedans. From that period till the past centy. it continued to be one of the bulwarks of Palestine.

We know not when the Jews first settled in Safed, or at what period they raised the town to the rank of a “holy city.” There were no Jews in the place in the middle of the 12th cent., when Benjamin of Tudela visited the country ; and it was not, in fact, until 4 centuries later that the schools of Safed became celebrated. Then a printing-press was set up, many synagogues were built, and the Rabbis of Safed were acknowledged to be among the chief ornaments of Hebrew literature. The names of Moses de Trani (1525-80), Joseph Karo (1545-75), Solomon Alkabaz (1529-61), Moses de Cordova (1570), Samuel Oseida, and Moses Alsheikh, (about 1600), are well known to the students of Rabbinical theology. They all spent the greater part of their lives in the schools of Sufed. The 16th centy. was their golden age of literature. In the 17th both learning and funds began to decline; and the terrible earthquake of 1837 gave a death-blow to the Jewish cause. Printing-press, synagogues, schools, houses, and people, were all involved in one common ruin. Now the whole Jewish community look like the tenants of an hospital suddenly turned out of their beds, and clothed in whatever came first to hand. The flowerpot hat of Poland, and the fur cap of Russia, crown pale, haggard faces, and gaunt figures, wrapped up in the tattered fragment of a Syrian kumbâz (robe). The greater proportion are natives of Poland ; but there are also representatives of most of the other countries of Europe.