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ple, had furnished him with the means of being perfectly well acquainted with the cuftoms and manners of the inhabitants he has therefore enlarged his plan, and instead of confining himself to fuch objects as were fufficient for the purpofe of his profeffion, he prefents his readers with a particular account of fuch things as feemed most to merit

attention.

Our Author is pleased to make an apology for his ftile, which, whether neceffary or not, our readers will determine from fuch extracts as we fhall lay before them.

When it is confidered, that the Author refided many years abroad, and converfed daily in other languages more than in his own, which he had but little leifure to cultivate, • the defects in his ftile, it is hoped, will be forgiven.'

And again, at the end of his advertisement to the Reader, we have another specimen of the Author's diffidence and modefty, which fhould not only befpeak our candour, but give us affurance of his fidelity in what he relates. 'How far the Author's abilities have been equal to the task he has undertaken, the public will judge, and he entreats their candour. That he has had fair opportunities of obferving, that he has given a faithful narrative of facts, and that he has used no falfe colouring in his representation, he prefumes to appeal to his cotemporaries and acquaintance; who, in vifiting thefe places again in his defeription, may, perhaps, call to mind many agreeable hours they have spent in these scenes, • fo far diftant from their native country.'

The defcription our Author gives of Aleppo is as follows: This city and fuburbs ftand on eight small hills, or eminences, none of them confiderable, except that in the middle of the place, on which the caftle is erected. This mount is of a conic form, and feems, in a great measure, to be arti• ficial, and raised with the earth thrown up out of a broad deep ditch that furrounds it. The fuburbs, called Sheih il Arab, to the N. N. E. are next in height to this, and those to the W. S. W. are much lower than the parts adjacent, and than ' any other parts of the city.

An old wall, not a little decayed, and a broad ditch, C now in most places turned into gardens, furround the city, the circumference of which is about three miles and an half; but, including the fuburbs, which are chiefly to the northeaft, the whole may be about feven miles *.

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Two hours and four minutes on horfeback, in the ufual way of riding for pleafure, which, I am apt to believe, is nearer four miles, than three and a half 1er hour.

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The houses are compofed of apartments, on each of the fides of a fquare court all of ftone, and confift of a ground floor, which is generally arched, and an upper ftory, which is flat on the top, and either terraced with hard plaifter, or • paved with ftone. Their ceilings are of wood, neatly painted, and fometimes gilded, as are alfo the window-fhutters, the pannels of fome of their rooms, and the cupboard-doors, of which they have a great number: these taken together, have a very agreeable effect. Over the doors and windows within the houses of the Turks, are infcribed paffages out of the Koran, or verses, either of their own compofition, or ⚫ taken from fome of their moft celebrated poets. The Chrif❝tians generally borrow theirs from Scripture.

In all their houfes the court-yard is neatly paved, and, for the most part, has a bason with a jet d'eau in the middle, on < one or both fides of which, a small spot is left unpaved for < a fort of garden, which often does not exceed a yard or two fquare; the verdure, however, which is here produced, to⚫gether with the addition of a few flowers in pots, and the fountains playing, would be a very agreeable fight to the paffenger, if there were openings to the street, through which ⚫ these might be difcovered; but they are entirely fhut up with double doors, fo contrived, as that, when open, one cannot ⚫ look into the court-yard: and there are no windows to the • ftreet, except a very few in their upper rooms; fo that nothing is to be feen but dead walls, which make their streets ⚫ appear very difagreeable to Europeans.

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Moft of the better fort of houses have an arched alcove ⚫ within this court, open to the north, and oppofite to the fountain; the pavement of this alcove is raised above a foot and an half above that of the yard, to ferve for a divan * • Between this and the fountain the pavement is generally laid out in Mofaic work, with various coloured marble; as is alfo the floor of a large hall, with a cupola-roof, which ⚫ commonly has a fountain in the middle, and is almost the only tolerably cool room in their houses during the summer.

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* Divan is a part of the room raifed above the floor, as is faid in the text: this is fpread with a carpet in winter, in fummer with fine matts; along the fides are thick matraffes, about three feet ⚫ wide, covered commonly with scarlet-cloth, and large bolfters of brocade, hard ftuffed with cotton, are fet against the walls, (or rails, when fo fituated as not to touch the wall) for the conveniency of leaning. As they use no chairs, it is upon these they fit, and all their rooms are fo furnished. The word divan is also used to fignify a number of people affembled in council.

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• The people of fashion have in the outer court, but one C or two rooms below stairs for themselves, the reft are for • fervants and ftabling; the pavement of this is but rough, as their horfes ftand there all the fummer, except a few hours in the middle of the day. Above ftairs is a colonade, if not round the whole court, at leaft fronting the west, off from which are their rooms and kiosks; these latter are a fort of wooden divans, that project a little way from the • other part of the building, and hang over the ftreet; they are raised about one foot and an half higher than the floor of the room, to which they are quite open, and by having • windows in front, and on each fide, there is a great draught of air, which makes them cool in the fummer, the advan< tage chiefly intended by them. Beyond this court is ano

ther, containing the womens apartments, built much in the • fame manner that I have described the other houses; fome • few of them have a tolerable garden, in which, as well as in the outer yard, there is generally a tall cyprefs-tree.

The mofques in Aleppo are numerous, and fome few of them magnificent; before each is a square area, in the mid⚫dle of which is a fountain for the appointed ablutions before prayers, and behind fome of the larger mofques there is a < little garden.

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Befides these open spaces, there are many large khanes, or (as moft travellers call them) caravan faraijs, confifting of a capacious fquare, on all fides of which are built on the ground floor, a number of rooms, ufed occafionally for ftables, warehouses, or chambers. Above ftairs, a colonade 'occupies the four fides, to which opens a number of small C rooms, wherein the merchants, as well ftrangers as natives, • tranfact most of their business.

The streets are generally narrow, but, however, are well paved, and kept remarkably clean.

The market-places, called here bazars, are properly long, covered, narrow streets, on each fide of which are a number of fmall fhops, just sufficient to hold the tradeffnan (and perhaps one or two more) with all the commodities he deals in about him, the buyer being obliged to ftand without. Each fe ⚫ parate branch of business has a particular bazar allotted them, and these, as well as the streets, are all locked up an hour and an half after fun-fet, and many of them earlier, which is a great fecurity against house-breakers. It deferves to be remembered, that tho' their doors are moftly cafed with iron, yet their locks are made of wood,

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In the fuburbs, to the eastward, are their flaughter-houses, in a very airy place, with a large open field before them. • The tanners have a khane, where they work, in the southweft part of the town, near the river.

To the fouthward, juft without the walls in the fuburbs, C they burn lime; and a little way further, is a small village, • where they make ropes and catgut, which last manufacture is, at fome feafons, extremely offenfive.

In Mefherka, which is part of the fuburbs on the oppofite fide of the river, to the weftward, is a glafs-house, where they make a coarse kind of white glafs, but they work only a few months in the winter, the greateft part of this manufacture being brought from a village called Armenass, about thirty-five miles to the weftward, from whence also they bring the fand used in their glass-house at Aleppo.

The city is fupplied with very good water from fome • fprings near the banks of the river at Heylan, about five miles to the north north east, which is conveyed from thence by an aqueduct, and diftributed to the different parts of the town by earthen pipes. There is a tradition, that this aque<duct was the work of the Emprefs Helena, and that from her the springs took their prefent name: this water is fufficient for the neceffary purposes of drinking, cookery, &c. Befides this, almoft every houfe has a well, but the water ⚫ of these, being brackish, is only employed in washing their court-yards, and filling the refervoirs for their fountains.

The fuel used in their houses, is wood and charcoal; for heating their bagnios, they burn the dung of animals, leaves of plants, parings of fruit, and fuch like, which they em⚫ploy people to gather and dry for that purpose.

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The markets are well fupplied with provifions, of which we fhall have occafion to give a more particular account. For at least four or five miles round Aleppo, the ground is very ftony and uneven, having a number of fmall eminences, moft of which are as high as any part of the city. From the weft-fouth-weft, to the north-weft by weft, this •fort of country continues for at least twenty miles, with a < number of small fertile plains interspersed. To the northward and fouthward, after about fix or feven miles, the country is level, and not ftony. To the eastward, a vast plain commences, which, tho it is called the Defart, yet for a great many miles beyond Aleppo, affords a fine fer'tile foil.

In clear weather, the top of Mount Caffius, bearing weft by fouth, and part of the mountains called Amanus, are to

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⚫ be seen from several places of the city; but as the nearest of thefe, viz. that part of Amanus which ftretches to the eastward, and approaches to Killis, is at least thirty miles diftant from Aleppo, they can be supposed to have but very little • influence upon the air of the place, any more than a small conical rocky hill, called Sheih Barakat, at about twenty miles to the weft by north, and a narrow chain of low rocky hills, ufually named the Black Mountains, to the fouth-fouth-east, at about ten miles diftance.

• The river Coic (if a ftream fcarce fix or eight yards <wide, deserves that name) paffes along the western part of the city, within a few yards of the walls, and barely ferves to water a narrow flip of gardens upon its banks, reaching • from about five miles north to about three miles fouth of the town. Befides these gardens, there are a few more, near < a village called Bab-Allah, about two miles to the northeaft, which are fupplied by the aqueduct.

The rifing grounds above the gardens, to which the wa❝ter cannot be conveyed, are in fome places laid out in vine· yards, interspersed with olive, fig, and pistachio trees, as are alfo many fpots to the eastward, where there are no • gardens.

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Inconfiderable as this ftream and these gardens may appear, yet they contain almoft the only water and trees that C are to be met with for twenty or thirty miles round; for the villages are all deftitute of trees, and most of them only fupplied with water by what rain they can fave in cifterns.' It is worthy notice what our Author obferves, p. 11.

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• In all Syria there is but one river, (the Orontes) that having its rife on the land-fide of the high mountains, finds its way to the fea; the reft, which indeed are but few and inconfiderable, being foon abforbed by the thirsty plains through which they run, more especially as they receive but very few fupplies in their paffage: and even the Orontes, tho' it be fwelled by a number of little brooks from the high • mountains behind which it runs, and derives a farther fupC ply from the lake of Antioch, yet feems as confiderable a great many miles above Antioch, as where it empties itself • into the Mediterranean.'

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Concerning the feasons, Dr. Ruffel fays, in general, they are exceeding regular at Aleppo, where the air is ufually healthy, and fo pure and free from damps, that all the inhabitants, of whatever rank they may be, fup and fleep in their court

The antient Singas.

yards,

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