discover these hidden treasures, and carry them off for their own use. On the summit of Jebel-el-Belkah, or Bilgah, as it is equally often pronounced, the Pisgah of the Hebrews, from which Moses saw the promised land and died, and which is only three hours south of the reputed tomb of Joshua, on the mountain of Assalt, there grew, according to the testimony of all present, a species of grass, which changed the teeth of every animal that ate of it to silver! And in a party of twenty persons then assembled, there were not less than five witnesses who declared most solemnly that they had seen this transmutation take place with their own eyes!! This conversation led to a debate on the history of Moses, his birth, and rescue by one of the daughters of Pharaoh, his wonderful works in Egypt, and his leading the Jews through the Desert to Canaan. Mallim Georgis, who shone in all matters of recitation and narrative, took so large a share in the debate, that he was unanimously requested to give it in detail, when he accordingly cleared his throat, and began with a loud voice, as if he were addressing a larger audience. To hear this history related in the Arabic language, and in a party of Arabs, so near as we were to the principal scenes described, was like the pleasure of hearing a tale from the Arabian Nights recited near one of the old Saracen buildings of Grand Cairo, the associations in each case making the hearer almost a spectator of the scene, and giving him a personal share in the events detailed. Every one present listened to the discourse of Georgis with evident pleasure; and during the pauses which were allowed for the guests to take coffee, and the narrator to take breath, various entertaining comments were made by the hearers on the several parts of the story that struck them most forcibly, or interested them particularly from the events or places to which they principally related.

In the course of the evening I observed, as peculiarities of conversation, that when one person wanted to arrest the attention of another, or to interrupt him in his discourse, he first called him by name, and then said, “A good evening to you, my friend;” to

which the other replied, "Good evening." This was considered as an assent to listen, when the orator proceeded with his discourse. Again, when the narrator of a story wished to obtain the particular attention of any individual in the company to what he was about to say, he first called that individual by name, and then bid him pray, as thus, "O Job! pray to the Prophet!" to which the person addressed replied, " I pray ;" and then the discourse proceeded as before. These interruptions were of very frequent occurrence, and were equally in use among the Mohammedan and Christian Arabs of these parts, to whom they appeared to me

peculiar, as I had not observed them in any other society of Arabs before.

ASSALT, Monday, February 26th. The frost had been so severe during the night, that, in the room where we slept, the water in vessels for drinking was coated over in the morning, although all the external air had been excluded and the apartment had been heated throughout the night by the breath of eleven individuals; and the snow outside the door was hardened into a solid mass of ice. The morning was, however, clear and fine, the sun beaming out in full splendour without a cloud; but when I talked of proceeding on our journey, every one opposed it as precipitate and ill-judged. My guide, indeed, refused to stir until he saw how the weather would settle, which, he said, could not be ascertained till twenty-four hours of clear sky had passed over us; and this, he

contended, was the more necessary, as we should meet with no houses in our way, and, from the severity of the season, even the Bedouins might have removed their tents to the low countries and the plains. All my efforts to persuade him that by perseverance we might overcome every obstacle were useless, and as I could not prevail, there was nothing for me to do but to appear content.

After suffering a tedious morning of idle visits from men who had communicated all they knew before, I caught a spare hour to go up and see the castle of Assalt, the pride and wonder of all its inhabitants. This edifice is seated on the summit of a roundtopped hill, composed of white lime-stone, out of which a deep and wide ditch has been excavated all around its base, so that it is literally founded on a rock. The building consists of an outer wall of enclosure, about one hundred yards square, with towers at each corner, and in the centre of each of its sides. Within this enclosure is a square citadel, and from twenty to thirty private dwellings, inhabited by Mohammedans connected directly or indirectly with the sheikh of the town. The general aspect of the castle is that of a work of considerable antiquity, but there were no particular features decisive of its age or date of original construction. The masonry is good, and the stones are large : many of them six feet by three; and these smoothly hewn and neatly joined at the edges, but rough in the centre of the outer front, or what is called the rustic masonry of the Romans, like the work in the lower part of the castle of the Pisans, or palace of David at Jerusalem, which, indeed, this citadel of Assalt very strongly resembles. Much of the original pile was in ruins, but a portion of one of the square towers remained: the eastern face of this was about fifty feet high from the bottom of the ditch, even in its present state. At the foot of this was a sloping mole, faced with smooth stones, forming a casing a casing to the living rock on which the castle stood; and this casing of masonry presented appearances of the marks of water, with which the ditch had no doubt formerly been filled. Within the castle is a fine spring of water,

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and from the well in which it is contained nearly the whole of the town is supplied. The original wall and tower have evidently been built upon by more modern hands, and of smaller and inferior materials; and the present gate of entrance into the castle has a pointed arch, well built, but doubtlessly constructed since the original erection of the edifice, being formed of smooth stones, unlike the rustic masonry of the castle generally, and of a smaller size as well as inferior workmanship. In different parts of this motley building, the Roman and the Saracen arch are seen together; but both of these appear to be modern additions, much posterior to the original building, the large rough stones, and the general aspect of which, give it the air of a place of higher antiquity than either Roman or Saracen times: the several portions are, however, now so confusedly mixed together that it would require great skill and patience to separate the one from the other.

At one corner of the citadel is a small mosque, frequented by the Mohammedan inhabitants of Assalt. Near this place we were shown two small European swivels, apparently two-pounders; they were each marked with a P., and the weights rudely cut on them were respectively 2cwt. 1qr. 18lbs., and 2cwt. 1qr. 16lbs. There was no device or emblem on them by which it could be determined from what nation they originally came: their appearance, however, was that of English ship-swivels, and the same circumstance induced me to think they could not be more than fifty years old. So rapidly, however, are things and events forgotten in countries where no written or printed records of them are kept, that no person at Assalt knew any thing of the history of these guns; although, from the difficulty of bringing such articles to an isolated spot like this, and from their being, probably, the only cannon that were ever known here, the circumstance of their first arrival at the town must have been an event of great importance at the time, and have been talked of for months and years afterwards. Here, too, within the castle, we saw the marble capital of a Corinthian column, small in size, and of inferior workmanship: but no one knew from