NAZARETH, a town or village of Palestine, celebrated in holy writ as the residence of our Saviour. It is situated in a deep valley, on the side of a high hill, nearer to its summit than its base, and having a rocky eminence along it. It contains about 250 buildings of stone, a material always at hand. They are flat-roofed, generally of only one story, but sufficiently spacious for the accommodation of the numerous poor families by whom they are inhabited. The streets are steep and narrow, and, from the looseness of the soil, exceedingly dirty. Of the public buildings the mosque is the most conspicuous, and is a neat edifice. It is enclosed with a good wall of masonry, so that Mr Buckingham, who visited it, could only see one of its sides, on which there were five arches. It has a plain whitened minaret, surrounded by a gallery, and surmounted by a crescent. The Greeks have a church on the south-eastern edge of the town, at the foot of a hill; and the Maronites have also a church in front of a Franciscan convent. This convent, Mr Buckingham mentions, is one of the largest and most commodious he had seen anywhere, being superior to those of Smyrna, Alexandria, or Cairo. It is still adorned with some precious remains of antiquity. Two antique shafts of red granite columns are used as portals to the door-way. Within is a court, and near the gate at its further extremity is the fragment of a shaft of another granite column, lying on the ground. White pillars form the portals of entrance to the original building, destroyed by the Turks; and of these the remains are still to be seen. On the wall, both within and without, there are worked into the masonry several pieces of the old ruins, containing delicate sculptures of frize, cornices, capitals, &c. The gate leads to a large paved square, in which there are two wells, surmounted by the cross; and on the right hand is the hall for the reception of strangers and visitors. The interior is furnished with every convenience, in staircases, galleries, and apartments. Mr Buckingham mentions, that he supped in a hall below, of considerable size. The table service consisted altogether of pewter, but every thing was extremely clean, and the provisions were excellent, particularly fine wheaten bread, and wine from Mount Lebanon, not inferior to the wines of France. The church belonging to the monastery is erected over a grotto, which is believed to have belonged to the Virgin Mary. In this place are shown her kitchen and fire-place; and by way of miracle a pillar is exhibited, the capital of which, separated from the shaft, is represented as self-supported in the air. Dr Clarke, however, soon observed that it was fastened into the wall above. Mr Buckingham was shown a second grotto, or a continuation of the first, with two red granite pillars, of about two feet in diameter at its entrance; and he was told that the one marked the spot where the Virgin rested, the other where the angel stood when he appeared to Mary. The church erected over this sacred spot is large, and well furnished with paintings, mostly gaudy, though there were a few not altogether devoid of merit. The synagogue in which Jesus read and expounded the prophet Esaias is shown here within the town; the precipice from which his enemies would have thrown him down is also pointed out; and, according to Mr Buckingham, it is not improbable that this precipice, which overlooks the town, was the scene of this outrage. But the most venerated relic is a stone called the table of Christ, from which he is asserted to have eaten before and after his resurrection. Nazareth forms part of the pachalik of Acre, and was reduced to indigence and misery by the oppression of Djezzar Pasha. Many of the wretched people emigrated in consequence; and several of the neighbouring Arabs said to Dr Clarke, that the beggars in England were better and happier than they. The stationary inhabitants are about 2000, of whom 500 are Catholic Christians, about 300 Maronites, and 200 Mahommedans, the rest being schismatic Greeks. Nazareth is fifty miles north from Jerusalem.