leading with them several camels and their lading, taken from our caravan. Immediately, the whole camp became a scene of warfare. Our legitimate pillagers, roused with indignation at the interference of other intruders on their sacred ground, rushed to horse and to arms. All the members of the caravan who had come up here by command, some mounted, and some on foot, rushed out to join them. A battle ensued: the horsemen, with their spears and swords, the men on foot with their muskets, pistols, and daggers, were previously engaged, hand to hand. Many were run through and through, with the long lances of the cavaliers, and afterwards trampled under their horses' hoofs; several others were wounded with sabre cuts, and still more had severe contusions and bruises. All were hotly engaged, at close quarters, for half an hour at least, and it fell to my lot to come into grappling contact with three individuals in succession, neither of whom escaped unhurt from the struggle. It ended, however, in victory declaring on our side, in the recovery of the plundered property, and the chasing the intruders from the camp.

It was faint twilight when this contest ended, and as it was desirable to get to our tents before it became dark, those who had ridden up to the camp, mounted the same horses to go back; but as I was on foot, a saddled mare was presented to me. I declined to ride, and begged to be permitted to walk. It was answered, that it would be a great breach of politeness to suffer one like me to depart from the tent of the chief on foot, and, in short, my riding was insisted on. I was obliged to yield; and, when mounting, my sword, which after the affray I had still continued to conceal, as before, was, as I expected, discovered. As the people of the country never see arms of any kind without examining them, it was in vain to resist their inspection of this. I was accordingly taken in to the sheikh, who expressed himself pleased with it. He asked how much it had cost me: I was afraid to name any sum; because, if I told him justly, he would have concluded that I was rich; if I stated its value at a low estimate,

he would have excused himself for taking it from me as a thing of little value. I therefore said it had been given to me by a friend whom I respected; and added, that I valued it so highly on that account, that I would suffer my life to be taken from me rather than part with it. This was uttered in a very determined tone, as the only method which presented itself to my mind, of escaping from extortion. It had, in part, the desired effect; but to compensate to the sheikh for his relinquishing all further claim to it, on account of the motive of my estimating it so highly, I was obliged to give him another sword, belonging to the nephew of my host, for which I engaged to pay this young man two hundred and fifty piastres, or return him one of equal value at Mardin.

After being thus literally fleeced, we returned to our camp, fatigued as much by the vexations of the day, as by the privation of our usual noon-sleep, and the bustle we had undergone in the mid-day sun. On going back, we saw the look-out boys descending from the summit of the steep hill, before mentioned, as one of the eminences of this post, and others were driving the flocks into stone enclosures, for their greater security through the night.

I had, at first, taken these enclosures for the remaining foundations of destroyed buildings; but, on a nearer examination, they appeared to be only sheep-folds, constructed of loose stones, with a door of entrance, and the enclosing walls just sufficiently high to prevent the animals escaping. There was here, however, on the south-western side of the hill, the portion of an old building, now in ruins. Its masonry was of unburnt bricks of a large size, but thin, and well cemented. I observed in it a good Roman arch, as of a recess, in the inner wall, but of what age its construction was, or to what purpose it had been applied, it would now be difficult to determine. The whole of the stones were large round insulated masses of the black porous basalt, so often described in the plains of the Haurān, on the eastern frontiers of Syria.

JUNE 18th. The confusion into which all the packages had been thrown, by the ransacking of the preceding day, occasioned great delay this morning to set them in proper order, so that it was long after sun-rise when we departed, although we had all been stirring, as usual, at the rising of the moon.

We continued our way north-easterly over the plain, in order to get into the track of the Arabs, to whom we had thus dearly paid tribute; a man of their tribe having been despatched to the chief in that direction, to acquaint him with this, and to permit us to pass in safety, without further extortions.

From all that I could learn, the usual places of encampment of this tribe of Beni-Melan were on the southern road from Orfah to

Mardin, and the more northern route from Orfah to Diarbekr; they had now, however, shifted their position, from a fear of the Annazies, who were much more powerful than themselves, and with whom their only mode of warfare would be by retreating, unless surprised and obliged to fight. These Annazies were estimated at fifty thousand horsemen at least, according to the testimony of the Beni-Melan themselves, as well as that of others who professed to be intimately acquainted with their resources.

In our progress over the plain on which we now travelled, we passed wide tracts of the finest land, producing a high grass exactly like corn. Indeed, I did not at first know it to be otherwise, until, by a comparison of it with fuller ears of grain in some sown patches near it, the difference was perceived. Even at the time of that examination, however, I still thought the first to be wheat in its indigenous state. Excepting only some few stony portions, where goats and sheep chiefly fed, the whole tract was one waving field of yellow harvest, seeming to invite the sickle; and in cleared patches of this were seen not less than five hundred tents, scattered in groups of from thirty to fifty each, in different parts of our way, with large herds of bullocks and horned cattle feeding in this luxuriant pasture.

At such of the tents as were near our path, we drank milk and coffee; and after an agreeable road of only three hours, in which, however, we were oppressed by the violent heat and the fatigue of the preceding day, we halted at noon near a pool of rain-water, to replenish the supply of the caravan.

Our situation was in itself sufficiently painful to all, but its effect was heightened to me by the forlorn situation in which I found myself here, without friend or companion, servant or interpreter; hearing every hour four or five strange languages, one of which only (the Arabic) I understood, and seeing in every individual about me a rudeness and selfishness of the most repulsive kind, however justified it might have been by the necessary dependance of every man on his own exertions.

It is true that here no one is superior to another, but by his own capacity of enduring hunger and thirst, heat and cold, watching and fatigue; and his only safeguard consists in the union of his own vigilance and courage with that of others, who are all strangers to him. The contracted and selfish interest to which this necessarily gives rise, the frequent refusal of one to render the least assistance to another, where his own benefit is not immediately concerned, and the insolence with which those are addressed who are thought in any way to delay the general progress, are constant subjects of disgust and irritation to all parties.

In the evening we were visited by two wandering musicians, of the Koordi, or Curd, people, one of whom played on a rude guitar, and the other sang some Koord songs, which were lively and not destitute of natural melody. We had, at the same time, the following striking instance of the frivolous appeals to the Deity among the Mohammedans. A man went round the caravan, crying, with a loud voice, " In the name of God, the just, and the merciful. My

cup is gone from me it disappeared while I prayed at sun-set;

(and may God grant my evening prayer.) To whoever may find the same, may God lengthen out his life, may God augment his pleasures, and may God bring down affairs of business on his head!" This pompous appeal to heaven, and the prayers for good fortune to the finder of the missing utensil, were all powerless, however, in their effect. The lost cup was not found; and the consolation then assumed was, "God knows where it is gone, but it was written in heaven from of old.”

As the Koordi inhabiting the hills near us had the reputation of being great robbers, we lay encamped to night in closer order than usual, every man by his horse, ready armed and accoutred, and catching at intervals an hour's sleep upon his sword or his spear.*

* Travelling in Mesopotamia seems, even in the earliest ages of which we have any records, to have been little less dangerous than at present. In the history of Isaac and Rebekah, when Abraham sent his chief servant from Canaan to Haran, to betroth the damsel, it is said, "It was a considerable while before the servant got thither; for it