raise these, a number of the palaces, gardens, and baths, belonging to the family, and once appropriated solely to their use, are now opened (as I learnt) to the public, of which the bath alluded to is an instance, and from this source a considerable annual sum is raised. From the great expense and care bestowed on its first construction, it is justly deemed one of the finest baths of the city; and though those of Cairo are renowned for their costliness and convenience, I thought this much superior to any that I had seen in the capital of Egypt.

On my return to the convent, I was visited by several Christian merchants, all Syrians by birth, and mostly natives of Damascus; accompanied by Doctor Chaboçeau, an old French gentleman nearly eighty years of age, now quite deaf, with his interpreter, Ibrahim, equally as old and as deaf as his master. The venerable physician had been more than fifty years in the East, or the Levant as it is generally called, including Constantinople, Cairo, Aleppo, and Damascus, yet during all this time he had acquired no one language of the country, speaking only French, and understanding Italian but imperfectly. This indifference, incapacity, or aversion of the French to the acquisition of foreign languages, every where remarked, and wherever they are placed in foreign countries, they are of all Europeans the slowest in acquiring either the language, the manners, or the habits of feeling prevalent among those by whom they are surrounded, retaining their nationalities, unaltered, after even years of exile and seclusion.

is

M. Chaboçeau's behaviour to me was full of urbanity and kindness, and during this our first interview he entertained me with many anecdotes of the several European travellers who had passed this way during his long residence in Syria, particularly of Mr. Browne, the Darfour discoverer; Pedro Nuñes, or Ali Beyel-Abassy, the Spaniard who had traversed Barbary; Doctor Seetzen, and Mr. Burckhardt; all of whom he had known personally. He had seen the celebrated Abyssinian Bruce at Cairo, and passed some days with Mr. Volney, at Acre; and, though he

praised the work of the latter on Egypt (as all must be constrained to do who read it), he added, that he had seen but little of Syria for himself, but that all he had written respecting this country was acquired by correspondence, or the visits of persons acquainted with its localities, whom he met with from time to time during his stay at a Maronite convent in Lebanon, where he remained almost all the time that he resided in Syria, and where, indeed, his volume on Syria and Egypt was written.

On enquiring if any news had been received of Mr. Bankes, I learnt that he had been, for the last twenty days, with Lady Hester Stanhope, at the convent of Mar Eleeas, near Seyda, the ancient Sidon, and that it was thought he would visit Balbeck and Palmyra from thence, and take Damascus in his route of return to the seacoast. The portion of my effects which I had thought it imprudent to take with me in my attempt to force a passage to the eastward from Karak, such as a watch, a sword, the notes of my voyage from Egypt to Syria and journey in Palestine, with my letter of credit on Mr. Barker, and other papers, were left with Mr. Bankes at Nazareth, to be taken by him to Damascus or Aleppo, as circumstances might direct; because, in the event of my being forced back, which had really happened, all those things would still be of use to me. Finding myself thus, in a large city, without money or credit, and therefore fettered in all my movements, for there was no proceeding further in any direction without a supply, I despatched a messenger on foot to Seyda, with a letter to Mr. Bankes, informing him of my being here, and desiring my baggage, papers, and effects, to be sent over to me without delay; directing the letter on the outside to be opened by Lady Hester Stanhope, in the event of Mr. Bankes having left her residence before it reached. The messenger departed soon after noon, under a promise of returning in five days; and the sum stipulated to be paid him for this was twenty piastres, or little more than three Spanish dollars.

My evening was passed in company with the friars of the convent, who had a small room for assembling in at night, in the

same manner as at Jerusalem. The conversation was almost wholly engrossed by a recapitulation of the miseries which they conceived themselves doomed to suffer in this exile from their country and their home; as well as in recounting the various acts of cruelty and ill-treatment to which they were constantly exposed from the brutality and infidelity of the Turks. All these evils, however, were greatly exaggerated, for the purpose, apparently, of impressing me with a belief that their life was one of great suffering and mortification; but in their estimate, as is too often the case with the great mass of mankind, they had entirely overlooked the comforts and even luxuries which they enjoyed, and which rendered their condition superior to that of millions, even among the intelligent, the industrious, and the deserving of their fellow creatures. They had, without rent or taxes, except such as were paid by their flock, a large and commodious house, with excellent apartments, gardens, courts, terraces, and fountains; a heavenly climate, an abundance of the necessaries of life, undisturbed tranquillity, and great respect and veneration from all those with whom they held communion, who were persons of their own faith, and both numerous and respectable. The friars were all Spaniards, and were fully as uninformed on all general subjects as their brethren at Jerusalem. This, indeed, appeared to me the true cause of their unhappiness; for, had they possessed only sufficient knowledge to inspire a taste for acquiring more, it is difficult to imagine a situation in which a man's happiness might be more complete than in an establishment of this description. It is necessary, however, to suppose that his religious duties are performed with the heart as well as the tongue; for if these are regarded as a task, rather than a voluntary offering, their frequent repetition must be irksome in the extreme; and it is not impossible but that this may have its share in the formation of the mass of suffering, by which they delight to picture to others that they are borne down and oppressed. Like the people of Assalt and the Hauran, they dwelt with great delight on the anticipated partition of the Turkish

empire, and thought it a reproach to the princes of Christendom, that the sanctuaries of the Holy Land should remain so long in the hands of these unbelieving monsters.

It was some time after sun-set when strangers were announced at the convent door; and, much to my surprise and satisfaction, it was my former companion, Mr. Bankes, with his servant and Albanian dragoman, a second interpreter for Arabic from Lady Hester Stanhope, a muleteer and four mules, just arrived from her ladyship's residence at Mar Eleeas. Our meeting was really a happy one, and we continued up very late, in recounting to each other what had befallen each, since our separation at Nazareth. Not having any means of being informed as to my movements (the communication between the country I had lately traversed and that on the coast being but rarely practicable), and not expecting to find me here, Mr. Bankes had not brought over my effects consigned to his care, but had left them with Lady Hester Stanhope, who had kindly taken charge of them, to be retained or sent forward as circumstances and events might subsequently require. Mr. Bankes's excursions since we separated had been interesting. From Nazareth he went to Nablous; and on his way between these, visited the ruins of Sebasta, which Dr. Clarke had unaccountably overlooked, and taken another place (Sanhoor) for its remains. *

* Mr. Bankes had with him the seventeenth number of the Quarterly Review, which contained a critique on that portion of Dr. Clarke's Travels in the Holy Land. It had, I believe, been sent to him, or was brought by him from Egypt; and I remember our both reading it at Jerusalem, and again at Nazareth. It was from this copy of the Quarterly Review that I gained my knowledge of its criticisms on Dr. Clarke and D'Anville, the inaccuracy of which I had occasion to point out more than once in the course of the Travels in Palestine already published. On the present occasion, however, I remember Mr. Bankes to have been severe in his strictures on what he called the "stupidity" of Dr. Clarke, in supposing the remains of Sebasta to be at Sanhoor (which the Reviewers, with still greater stupidity, call "the town and Norman fortress of Santoni," and "which," they say, "our author, with great probability, identifies with the ancient Sebaste" +), while such considerable remains still exist, and where even the ancient name is still retained in the Subusta of the Arabs. Mr. Bankes,

+ Quarterly Review, vol. ix. p. 197.

From Sanhoor Mr. Bankes went down to Beisan, on the western bank of the Jordan, and saw there many columns of marble, and the remains of a small and ordinary theatre much ruined. His stay with Lady Hester Stanhope had been agreeable, and he had visited many curious places in the neighbourhood of her residence, under the guidance of her physician, Dr. Meryon. Though we were both extremely fatigued, and needed, as much as we desired, repose, this mutual interest, in which we seemed equally to participate, kept us up until past midnight, and even then we parted reluctantly to rest.

Damascus, Friday, March 23. We remained within the convent the whole of the day to repose; and it was passed in my reading to Mr. Bankes the rough notes of my journeys since our separation, and in comparing the inscriptions which I had copied in the Hauran with those which had been copied by Mr. Burckhardt, and of which he had given some copies to Mr. Bankes. We found that I possessed several which he did not, and vice versa, as well as that in those of which we both had copies there were some that agreed in every letter, and others which differed but slightly in a few characters only.

After reading my notes on the journey I had made through Belkah, Adjeloon, and the Hauran, Mr. Bankes was so much pleased with the account I had there given of the several objects met with in the way, that he formed a resolution to go from hence to Bozrah, and, if possible, to proceed from thence to Assalt and Amman, and then to return a second time to Jerusalem to pass the holy week. I was pleased at this determination of Mr. Bankes, and

at the same time, concurred with me in the opinion, that nothing could be more preposterous than the idea of Reviewers setting themselves up as judges, to decide, in their closets at home, upon questions of local position, which could only be determined by evidence on the spot; and condemned, most heartily, the arrogance of professed critics in general, and the assumed infallibility of the Quarterly Reviewers in particular. I had no idea then, however, that this same Mr. Bankes would ever join the very persons, and pursue the very practice, which he here so justly condemned.