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crowning two correspondent aisles within. The women here wear the open-front blue gowns, and narrow red aprons, with white upper cloths for the head, which are merely crossed over the neck, and leave their faces unveiled, like the costume of the female peasants in the villages near Damascus.

On the west and north-west of the town, at the distance of a mile or two, is a range of stony hills, branching off from those we had crossed in the night, and on these were seen many ruined villages, all, perhaps, the remains of old Roman settlements. To the south was also a large village, at present inhabited, called Ekbrihh, and distant, apparently, about three miles.

We left the village of Dana about an hour after sun-rise, and went easterly over a plain of rich soil, partly covered with corn nearly ripe, and partly now ploughing for the second harvest. Agriculture seemed to be well understood here, and its labours performed with as much care and neatness as in Europe. The absence of enclosures occasions very large portions of ground to be ploughed on in continuance; but though many of the furrows were of a length not to be measured by the eye, they were all perfectly strait at regular distances; such, indeed, as the best of our ploughmen might not be ashamed to have turned up.

The improved state of cultivation here was followed by its necessary consequence, a more abundant population. Besides the villages of El-Ekbrihh and Dāna, we passed, at the foot of the range of hills on our left, three other larger ones in succession, namely, El-Hhuzzeny, Tal-deady, and El-Hhaleaka, all at the distance of about a mile from each other, and the last at the foot of a high peaked mountain, the name of which we did not learn. These villages are all peopled by Moslems, and, as far as we had an opportunity of judging from the appearance of the peasantry at work in the fields, they were active, industrious, and far above the distress of want.

An hour after leaving Dana, going always nearly east, we came to the end of the plain, and began again to ascend a ridge

of bare lime-stone hills, called generally by the name of Jebel Semān. We saw many scattered ruins here also, particularly one of a large town, called Dirrhman, said to be Shookl Koofär, or the work of infidels, now entirely deserted, and standing on the summit of one of the ridges described.

Ascending and descending alternately for about an hour, in the course of which we passed one narrow valley cultivated with corn, and saw ruined villages and detached buildings on both sides of us, we reached the highest summit of the range. There was here a small inhabited village, and a larger deserted one, with several wells and cisterns hewn out of their rocky bed; the whole surrounded by small portions of the soil planted with fig-trees. We could see from hence, that the line of Jebel Ahhmar on the north was continued by a higher range of mountains running also nearly east, and having many parts of its summit covered with snow; the whole line being, no doubt, a ramification of the Great Taurus of the ancients, or that south-western branch of it which divides Asia Minor from Syria.

Continuing our way E.S.E. for about an hour and half over very stony and uneven ground, but slightly cultivated, and strewed with ruins of villages here and there, we came on the top of an elevated plain, from which we had the first sight of Aleppo; the mināreh of its high castle being but barely visible. It bore from us exactly E. by S., said to be distant four hours, and apparently about twelve miles off. The highest part of Mount Taurus, which was covered with snow, and resembled in form and size that portion of Lebanon occupied by the cedars, bore from us, at the same time, N.W. by N., and appeared to be distant about fifty miles. level was now at least two thousand feet above that of the sea, and, though on a plain, many of the distant hills around us looked comparatively low. The peak of Jebel Okrah could not be seen, nor that abrupt termination of the range which overlooks the town of Antaky, so that no bearing of it could be taken to fix the relative position of these points from Aleppo.

Our

We had now gone over nearly the whole of the direct road from the port of Seleucus to the city of Antioch, and from thence to the Berea of antiquity, which Aleppo is thought to be. Every part of it, as may be seen, offer proofs of the once highly populated state of the country, and the corresponding existence of public roads, towns, and edifices by the way, under the government of the Romans, when Syria was but a small province of their mighty empire. The contests between their successors for the disputed triumph of the crescent or the cross, first began to sweep away that population, and demolish its monumental labours; and those slower but equally certain destroyers, an overgrown military force and a purely despotic sway, have contributed to prolong that gradual decline, until no hope remains of this country ever attaining the abundance, the comfort, the wealth, and the strength it once possessed, until it shall pass into other hands.

From the plain last mentioned, we continued our way over a stony and barren road, until, about El-Assr, we saw the high castle of Aleppo rising from behind a round ridge, or wave of the land, that had until then intercepted it, and soon afterwards the whole town opened on our view. From the bareness of the hills around, and the general monotony of the city itself, when viewed at this distance, the prospect of the whole was far from prepossessing. The buildings seemed crowded in one indistinct mass of white; the minārehs and domes were few, in comparison with the number of those seen in Turkish cities in general; and, excepting only some small gardens in the immediate neighbourhood of the town, there was neither wood nor verdure to give relief to the scene.

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STAY AT ALEPPO, AND RECORD OF TRANSACTIONS THERE.

ON entering Aleppo we proceeded through many streets, until we reached the house of Mr. Barker, the British consul here, where we alighted; and going up into the ante-room I desired the janissary to announce my arrival. There was a delay, and enquiries, and messages, for at least half an hour, which I did not at all understand, until I was at length desired to walk into the hall of audience. Here I was received with a very marked coldness, which I could not but notice; my questions were replied to with studied brevity, my observations often scrutinized, and, in short, the treatment such as could leave me no longer in doubt of there being some cause for it, of which I was entirely ignorant. A younger brother of Mr. Barker, whom I had known

came.

at Smyrna, in the service of Mr. Wilkinson, was in the house at the time, but purposely absent, and all was too plain to be misunderstood. After a cup of coffee had been taken, the explanation Mr. Barker observed, that having no personal knowledge of me or of my family, and my not having been mentioned to him in any way by any of his correspondents or friends, he had refused acceptance to a bill which I had drawn on him for 1000 piastres from Damascus.

The circumstances under which that transaction took place were these: - I had left Alexandria with fifty sequins in gold, and a letter of credit furnished me by Mr. Lee, for any sum which might be necessary for my journey to India, addressed to Mr. Barker here. In my attempt to get across the Desert direct to Bagdad, that money brought with me was all expended, and on my arrival at Damascus I had even a debt to discharge to Georgis, the man who was my guide from Nazareth to Assalt, and from thence up through the Haurān. Having no duplicate of my letter of credit, and conceiving there would be always greater risk of its loss while in other hands than while in my own, as well as that, if so lost, my distress would be irretrievable, I forwarded to Mr. Barker a copy of that letter, at the same time advising him of my having drawn the sum in question, not doubting but that he would accept it. I had supplied my wants therefrom, and had now come safe to Aleppo on the remainder, where, for the first time, I heard of the bill being refused payment, and protested.

The motives assigned by Mr. Barker for such a step were these : He said, upon the face of the thing itself, it appeared highly improbable, that a merchant from his cradle, as Mr. Lee was, would give an unlimited letter of credit to any man; that it was also usual in such transactions for a letter of advice to be forwarded at the same time by some other hand, limiting the sum, or making such other observations as might be thought necessary ; but that, in the present case, no letter of any sort had reached him

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