was known by the name of Hakim Moosa, and the latter by the name of Sheikh Ibrahim. Both of these travellers were habited in the same manner as I had found it necessary to be, namely, in the dress of a Bedouin Arab; each of them wore a beard, and spoke the Arabic language; the former very imperfectly, the latter tolerably well. In the company of Mohammedans, these travellers preserved the appearance and profession of the Moslem faith; but

with the Greek and Catholic Christians, who abound on the east of the Jordan, they passed invariably as Englishmen, and were well treated on that account; although Dr. Seetzen was a German, and Mr. Burckhardt a Swiss. The former of these travelled always on foot, accompanied by an Arab guide, to whom he gave a Spanish dollar per day, which was considered a munificent reward; and it is said, that the chief objects of his enquiry were the mineral and vegetable productions of the country, with such curiosities in natural history as fell in his way, to the collection and examination of which his mode of journeying was particularly favourable. Mr. Burckhardt usually rode, either on a camel, a maré, or an ass; and the chief objects of his pursuit were thought to be antiquities, geography, and the manners of the people. These were the impressions that I gathered from the conversation of the party regarding these distinguished travellers, who were well known to most of the persons present, as each of them had made a stay of many days at this place.

Our supper was followed by card-parties, which assembled in different quarters of the room, all sitting on the ground, and having stools of about a foot in height to serve for card-tables. The games played were various; one of them, however, resembled Quadrille, and another Loo. The cards were dealt and played backward, or from right to left, and the names of the suits were Italian, though not all correctly applied; spades being called bastoni; clubs, spadi; diamonds, argenti; and hearts, cuori. The parties played for money; but though the sums staked were

small, it was sufficient to agitate very warm disputes among the players.

We broke up early, dispersing before nine o'clock, when we were taken to another house to sleep. The mistress of it, who was a widow, and related to my guide, received us kindly, and insisted on going through the ceremony of washing my feet, observed, as I understood, among the Christians of Assalt to all strangers who come among them as guests or visitors. The house in which we were now lodged, consisting of two rooms only, one above the other, I naturally concluded that the widow and her children would have slept in one of these, and that Georgis and myself would have occupied the other. It was otherwise arranged, however; the lower room was used in the daytime for all the purposes of cooking, and other household labour, and at night was converted into a bedroom; while the upper story was made entirely a storehouse for the secure keeping of provisions, clothes, and other articles, put under lock and key. Mats were therefore spread for us all on the lower floor; and what struck me as a remarkable feature of the arrangement was this, that while the widow, who was not more than 30 years of age, lay in the middle of the room, Georgis and I were directed to lie on each side of her, and the young children were placed beyond us respectively; leaving scarcely two feet space between each person, as the room was not more than twelve or fifteen feet square. It did not appear to be the custom of the place to undress for sleep, as each lay down in the garments worn during the day. Our rest was, however, occasionally disturbed during the night; and as neither of the parties had any specific bounds assigned, I found the widow rolling alternately toward Georgis or myself, as she turned sides for relief; so that we often pressed closer on each other than was at first intended, and might be literally said to have slept all in one bed.

Assalt, Saturday, February 24.—The day broke in tempests, accompanied by thunder, lightning, and hail. The storm was

indeed awful, and the aspect of the weather throughout the day was such as to forbid all hope of our moving on our journey. The high wind was productive of terrible consequences to some of the inhabitants, as we witnessed, indeed, from the door of our dwelling. Before the gale commenced the ground was already covered with snow; and the thunder and hail of the morning being followed by violent gusts of whirlwind and torrents of rain, some of the cliffy parts of the mountain broke away, and the lower parts of the town which filled the valley beneath these cliffs became buried under the fallen masses of rock, earth, and snow, by which many of the inhabitants were severely hurt, and such of their cattle as were not crushed by the fall of these masses very narrowly escaped drowning in the accumulated floods and pools which filled the obstructed hollows of the vale throughout.

Notwithstanding the tempestuous weather, which continued with little intermission during the day, we had a number of curious visitors, who came to enquire of us the news of other parts, and from whom I was equally glad to gather some local information in

return.

In the course of the day the two Arabs of the tribe of Beni Abad, who had been our guides from the mosque of Abu-el-Beady to the passage of the Zerkah, came all the way from thence to Assalt to demand the restitution of their garments, thrown off by them when they quitted us on the mountain to go to the assistance of their fellow-robbers in the plain below. My guide, Georgis, who had retained these garments as a security for their return of his musket, carried off by them at the same time, expressed his willingness to restore them the moment the musket was produced. They replied that this was impossible; as it had been taken from them by the owners of the stolen cattle, who had rescued their property, disarmed the robbers, and succeeded in bearing back the spoil in triumph to their own camp. They contended, therefore, that the musket was lost by the will of God; and that it was both irreligious and unjust to demand its restoration; a demand, indeed,

E

impossible now to satisfy. "With regard to the garments," said they, "the case is quite different. It is evident, from their being safe in your keeping, that it was the will of God to have them restored to their proper owners: why, therefore, should you, by withholding them, oppose the destinies of heaven? Give us back our robes," said they, " and let us again break bread together in friendship." Absurd as this distinction may appear, there was an earnestness of natural eloquence in the pleadings of these Arabs which made them all-powerful; and though they were avowed robbers, as well as men of a different faith, the Greek Christians unanimously agreed, that though the musket could not be recovered, the garments should be restored, exclaiming, " Allah kereem!” or "God is bountiful!" and inferring from thence that his creatures should follow the dictates of liberality and benevolence, rather than those of retaliation and revenge.

Assalt, Sunday, February 25.-The weather had not yet become settled, though there were short intervals which admitted of our going out of doors, and this was of itself a great relief, as my confinement of the preceding day had been very irksome and painful to me. I had not suffered it to pass, however, more unprofitably than I could help; and as the observations which occurred to my notice or experience were committed to writing at broken periods, as I could find time between the almost incessant coming and going of visitors, I shall follow them in the order in which they were noted down, and if deficient in arrangement and connection, they may at least be relied on for their accuracy.

The town of Assalt* is seated on the slope of so steep a hill

* In writing this name I have followed the exact pronunciation of the present inhabitants, although if the word were written "Salt," they would pronounce it in exactly the same manner, from their almost constantly placing an aspirate before the s in words beginning with that letter. There is reason to believe that this is the city of "Salt" mentioned in the book of Joshua, chap. xv. ver. 60., and enumerated among the towns and villages which formed the portion of the tribe of Judah in the southernmost part of their possessions towards Edom, - Salt being classed with the cities in the mountains and the wilderness, or near the Desert, where it may be said to lie. It is men

*

that the houses rise one above another like a succession of steps or terraces, the buildings themselves facing chiefly towards the east and the south. On the summit of the hill is a large castle, which looks down upon the houses, and completely commands the town. At the foot of the hill is a narrow ravine, in which stands a small square tower, not unlike some of the country church steeples in England, and probably once belonging to a Christian place of worship, but no traditions of its history are preserved. There appeared to be on the whole about a hundred separate dwellings in this small town of Assalt; and the computation, by taking an average of twenty ordinary houses, made the population from five to six hundred souls only.

The Sheikh el Belled, or chief of the town, is a Mohammedan ; but holds himself independent of all the Syrian pashas. He does not receive tax or tribute, however, from any of the inhabitants, either in money or in produce; and differs only from the rest of the community in the influence he possesses, from having more houses, lands, and property than any of his fellow-townsmen. He lives in the castle, of which he occupies the largest portion; but several other families reside in other apartments of this large building; and the only source of his power is his superior wealth, as he is not vested, either hereditarily or by election, with any

tioned as this city in Adrichomius, Theatrum Sanctæ, folio ed. p. 54., and was a place well known to the historians of the Crusades. In an article published in the " Mines de l'Orient, tom. v. p. 145., it is mentioned among the "Extraits historiques relatifs au Temps des Croisades du Livre, Insol. djelil fit tarikhi Khods el Khaleel," thus ; "In 626 (A. H.) Jerusalem was delivered up to the Franks, in consequence, as the Mohammedan writers say, of the divisions among the reigning princes, who, though all of one family, made as many parties as they were brothers in number. Some of the conditions were, that the walls should not be repaired from their present ruined state; that the domes of the mosques of Sakhra and Aksa should not be touched, and these temples be equally open to Christians and Moslems, while those villages only which lay on the road between Acre and Jerusalem should belong to the Franks. Kamel having made these conditions, and having still his troops at his own disposition, pursued his original plan of marching against Damascus; when Nassir, the governor of that city, made it over to his brother, Eshrif Moise, and received in exchange for it the castles of Karak, Shaubeck, Belkah, and Salt."

* See the Vignette at the head of this chapter.