for the purpose of rescuing the Holy Land from the infidel grasp of the Turks; and they understand the Holy Alliance to have no other aim in view. Buonaparte is their favourite hero; and not even by his warmest admirers in Europe was he ever so extravagantly eulogized as he is here. They all believe that his only object was to rescue the holy sepulchre from infidel hands, and give to the Christians of the East a complete deliverance. The French army, and the battles fought by them in Syria, are therefore frequent themes of conversation, and are never spoken of without the greatest exaggeration; though it must be admitted that a mere handful of the French often defeated and dispersed thousands of Turks and Arabs combined. Facts, indeed, and those too notorious to be controverted, would furnish them sufficient food for admiration; but not satisfied with this, they relate events which none but those who believed in the existence of modern miracles could for a moment credit.

Assalt, Wednesday, February 28. - My Nazarene guide, Mallim Georgis, not being so well acquainted with the road from hence to Karak as with the first part of our journey, it became advisable to procure a person who not only knew the way, but was acquainted with the Bedouins of the country through which we had to pass. The man who was deemed best qualified for this journey was soon brought to me; and Abu Farah, for that was his name, pleased me much at our first interview. From his general appearance and manner I had taken him for a Mohammedan; but I had occasion to learn soon afterwards that he was quite as much a Christian as a Moslem; his faith and practice being so equally balanced, that he might be taken for a connecting link between the two. He had all the manners of a Mohammedan, though his profession was that of a Christian; but he was by nature so constituted, that his feelings would be always on the side of whichever religion afforded him the greatest privileges; as, in the present instance, he regarded his confinement to one wife as a very painful sacrifice, though

enjoined by his faith, and consoled himself, as well as he could, for this restriction, by rejoicing that he was at least permitted to eat pork and drink wine whenever he could obtain them, a pleasure denied to those who could exceed him in the number of the females of his harem.

As the morning appeared to promise us a favourable day, I was determined to set out in prosecution of my journey; but, as usual, new difficulties were started, and new objections moved. So common is it, however, to be interrupted in the most reasonable designs and ordinary occupations of life, by the busy idlers who throng round every one setting out on a journey of any distance, that I conceived their objections less worthy of attention than perhaps they deserved. Some were of opinion, that, if we should get to Karak in safety, it would be difficult at any time, but quite impossible at the present, to make a journey from thence to Baghdad, from the hostile operations of the Wahabi Arabs extending over the intervening country. A still greater number thought we should not even reach Karak, in consequence of the Beni-Szakher Arabs often coming in upon the borders of that town, and making the road dangerous to all passengers, but particularly to strangers. Abu Farah, my new companion, was well known, however, to all the Bedouins, whose small encampments lay between the places on the road, and we hoped by this means to make our journey good. An objection was next raised by my guide himself, as to our setting out to-day, he insisting on it that Youm-el-Arbaah, or the fourth day, was the most inauspicious day of the week on which to commence a journey. It was a long while before he would be prevailed on to start until to-morrow; but the threat of procuring another guide, if he declined, removed his scruples, and our departure was accordingly determined.

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 28.- It was about ten o'clock in the morning when we mounted our horses to set out on our journey. On leaving Assalt, we passed down by the foot of the hill, on the side of which the town stands, and watered our horses there at a large trough and well, at which the women of the place were washing garments. From hence we passed on through a narrow valley, which runs eastward of the town; and, after continuing about a quarter of a mile in that direction, turns off to the south-east, and grows wider and wider till its termination. Near the town, on this its eastern side, the hills that enclose the valley are laid out in vine-beds. In the rocks are grottoes, which particularly abound on the northern side of the valley, and many of these are, even

now, inhabited by shepherds, who feed their flocks on the neighbouring hills, and retire to these caves for shelter at night.

On turning to the south, in which direction we soon proceeded, the valley became more fertile, and appeared to be well wooded and watered throughout its extent, being capable of a much higher degree of cultivation than it is likely to enjoy for a long time to come, and of sustaining five times the population that now inhabit the town and neighbourhood. From the

eastern extremity of this valley we ascended a steep hill, from the summit of which we enjoyed a fine view of the castle and town of Assalt to the westward. Our course from this lay south-east for the first hour, on a rugged and stony road. In our way over this we saw the Dead Sea, about five leagues distant to the south-west, and the town of Bethlehem in the mountains of Judea, bearing by compass W. S.W., distant, perhaps, in a straight line, about thirty miles.

On reaching the end of this elevated and stony plain, we descended over the brow of the hill in which it terminated, and alighted at a place called Anabno doubt the same as that enumerated among the various cities and towns in Joshua (chap. xv. v. 20.). The word itself signifies "grapes," a fruit with which the whole of this region abounds, and which it appears to have possessed in the earliest ages; for this is the part of the country into which the spies were sent by Moses, when encamped in the wilderness of Paran, to spy out the land, and from whence they brought back a branch with a cluster of grapes, as a proof of the fertility of the soil, or, in the figurative language of those days, of its “ flowing with milk and honey." (Numbers, xiii. 23. 27.)

Anab is still inhabited by about one hundred persons, but these all live in grottoes or caves excavated in the rock, which were probably more ancient than any buildings now existing. Their preservation, however, offers the strongest proof that the very earliest of their occupiers must have been men of the ordinary size of the present generation, and not giants, as described by these

emissaries from the camp. Their exaggeration of the size of the cities, which were said to be "walled and very great," might be pardoned in those who were born during the forty years' wandering in the wilderness, in which they had never seen any towns; though such a description could not have been given of any of the places of the Amorites, by those who had seen Memphis, and others of the many really "great" cities in Egypt. But their exaggeration with respect to the men is not so easily accounted for, as they must have seen men of as good stature among their own race as any that inhabited the land of Canaan. As the men who related these extraordinary facts respecting the country they had been sent to examine were condemned to die of the plague because of the "evil report" which they brought up of the land, it is fair to infer, that this evil report was a false one, as death would be an inappropriate reward for fidelity of description; and there is, therefore, reason to believe that there was no truth whatever in their assertion, that the people of the country were giants, in whose presence they themselves (the spies) appeared but as grasshoppers. (Numbers, xiii. 33.)

The size of the caves now inhabited here, and which are undoubtedly of very high antiquity, confirm the opinion that their original occupiers were of the same size as their present possessors. These are chiefly shepherds, whose flocks browse on the steep sides of the hills near them, and who, in the severe nights of winter, take shelter in the caves, with their attendants. Some of the inhabitants of the caves are, however, cultivators of the earth, and till and plant such detached plots and patches of the soil, among the least steep parts of the ascent, as may be most favourable for the fruits or grain. The grottoes themselves are all hewn out by the hand of man, and are not natural caverns; but, from their great antiquity, and the manner in which they were originally executed, they have a very rude appearance. Nevertheless, the persons who occupy them fortunately deem them far superior to buildings of masonry, and consider themselves better off than those who live in