a similar guardian against them in two grand columns at Holy Sepulcher, whose capitals were ornamented with figures of serpents. Because of these, it was said, anyone bitten would be safe against all ill effects provided he remained within the city walls for three hundred and sixty days, but if he went beyond them for even so much as a single day he would be a dead man. There were similar talismans all over the Holy Land. At Emesa it was a figure in the wall of the Dome, the upper part man and the lower scorpion, and whoso was bitten must press a bit of clay against this and drink a draught of water in which the clay had been dissolved. In the City Gate of Ma 'arrah an Numan was a column of stone which prevented the entrance of all scorpions, and if one were carried in and set free it would flee at once. At the brink of the Valley of Jahannum one could hear the cries of the condemned in Hell, although Nasir i Khusrau, one of the Arab chroniclers, listened in vain; but probably all ears were not attuned to these cries. Even in our day there are those who never know when a false note is sounded. The Christians, of course, had their legends, too, and the recital of the miracles quoted by their writers would take a volume. These centered around the Crucifixion and its aftermath, but there was many a tale of the intervention of Heaven and the saints at crises when only the supernatural could save the followers of the Cross. Most interesting is their interpretation of the origin and significance of the very same sacred