remove their conical cap, the long thick locks fall down their face and shoulders, with a luxuriance as if belonging to a Leila, rather than an uncleanly dervise. His face was pale, and his eyes large, stupid, and restless; he sat down, and partook of some coffee, but it was impossible to get any intelligent words or ideas out of him, and he soon marched off, to fraternize with the peasantry. A lady, with her slave, is seen in the middle of the plate: the sellers and buyers take every thing calmly and indolently, the former sitting cross-legged in their little shops. The hope that Antioch would soon become a place of commerce and pleasure, is defeated by the wreck of Colonel Chesney's expedition. Had this succeeded, and the Orontes been made navigable from Suadeah to this city, its streets, bazaars, and beautiful river would have been alive with foreign trade and shipping, and European merchants and strangers. By what unforeseen disasters did this splendid enterprise miscarry, without any misconduct or oversight on the part of its directors? It is a cruel disappointment: so many rich realities, so many beautiful speculations, were built upon the opening of this route down the Euphrates! Let us hope that it is not finally abandoned; or, that it will be resumed in a few years by national enterprise. A water communication from the mouth, and along nearly the whole course of the Orontes, and then by a canal of sixty miles to the Euphrates, would enable the merchant to pour his goods into the fine countries on either side; emigrants would find a rich climate and soil in the wildernesses of Asia Minor; and the traveller would pass in ease and comfort to the ruins, the deserts, and towns of the ancient river, even to the Persian Gulf. The aspect of Antioch is much improved since its possession by Ibrahim Pasha: his officers and agents enliven the streets and walks. The traveller need not say that all is barren, where the French, the Pole, the Nubian, and the Egyptian are sometimes met in a festive party, all serving one ambitious and successful master: their spirits have caught some of the excitement and aspiring of his master-spirit; this adventurous soldiery are full of enthusiasm for Ibrahim; the Orientals have an unbounded confidence in his fortune, with which they blend a religious prestige, believing him to be called by God to effect mighty changes in the East. The traveller in these countries should seek observation and society every where; he is no longer confined chiefly to the coffeehouse and the khan, and an occasional interview with the great men; the successes of the invader have made all ranks more accessible; the conventional and unvarying habits of the East are breaking down, little by little, and a new excitement is given to its monotonous life and modes of thinking. Groups of horsemen and peasants are met with by the side of the river, which flows swiftly through gardens, where the creaking of the wheels used for irrigation is heard throughout the day. Without the walls, the new palace of Ibrahim is constructed in a pleasant situation; and he has demolished part of the ancient walls and towers, to furnish materials. Proceeding through the mud-walled streets, you stop at a gate, which is opened on knocking, and step into the court of the house; this is the house where the European finds hospitality. It was a delicious evening: the latticed window looked beyond the environs on the solitary plain: nothing like the hum of a large city M |