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combined with the possession of wealth and the 'consciousness that it is our own. We conceal nothing, for we have no motive for concealment. Our house is our palace, and though the winds may whistle through our dilapidated halls, the Queen herself dare not enter without our permission. Freedom has increased our property, and our wealth has 'enhanced the value of our freedom. Our temptation is not to concealment, but to ostentation and unnecessary display.

This tendency or temptation among us stands in connection with our character as a highly civilized and commercial nation. Great transactions cannot be carried on without credit, and credit is necessarily based on the belief of wealth; so that very often, where there may be little real property, it may be most desirable that there should be the appearance of it......

The mean, low door in Damascus, tells you of tyranny, 'concealment, and the want of 'confidence in public justice. Misery without and splendour within, is a principle which befits a land where paper is just paper, whatever name it bears; where gold is the only circulating medium; where a man's own house is his bank; and where the suspicion of being rich may make him a prey to the rapacity of the government.

On the contrary, the noble streets, squares, crescents, &c., of our modern cities, are clear indications, not only of great wealth and power, but also of something far dearer and nobler-namely, that confidence in one another, formed by myriads of 'concurring *circumstances, of which Christianity is one of the mightiest, and out of which flow most of the blessings of European civilization and free political institutions.

But what is the use of that stone by the door-post? These stones are the steps from which ladies mount their donkeys, mules, and horses. Nor should you think this strange. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Paris presented these mounting-stones at all the angles of the streets, and at other convenient places. At Frankfort on the Main, there was a certain gate at which these conveniences were prepared for the emperor and the magnates of the German Diet;7 and I have no doubt that, in the days of feudalism and knightly glory, London was not behind its neighbours in this respect.

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REV. DR. GRAHAM.

con'sciousness,knowl'edge.
consumption, employ'-

ment.

disagree able, unpleasant. effectually, success'fully. effem'inate, wom'anish. enchant'ed, bewitched'. encircled, encom'passed. enhanced', increased'.

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1 Mosque, a Mohammedan place of wor- | in 1605. In the year 1625 hackney coaches

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were established and licensed; and in 1778
the number of coaches in England was
23,000 which paid £117,000 duty. The
origin of the easy suspension or spring-
coach is ascribed to Hungary; and the
post-chaise we owe to France.

"Bedouins, a tribe of wandering Arabs,
dwelling in tents, and scattered over
Arabia and parts of Africa. The word
means 66 dwellers in the desert."

7 German Diet, the meetings of the princes who formed the confederation of the German Empire. The Diet was so called because its sittings were continued from day to day. [Lat. dies, a day.] The last Diet met at Frankfort in 1866. The Parliament of the new German Empire meets at Berlin.

" Our fathers used no coaches.-Whirlicotes were used in England in 1398, for the mother of Richard II. used one in fleeing from the rebellious people. They were afterwards disused, as effeminate and unnational, until, in 1580, the Earl of Arundell introduced the spring-coach from Germany or France, which speedily became popular with the nobility. In 1601 they Feu'dalism, the system of government were forbidden by Parliament, as effemi- under which lands were held by a vassal nate; yet, in defiance of all legislation, they from a superior, on condition of the former were common enough in the city of London rendering military service to the latter. QUESTIONS.-What contrast to London does Damascus present, in respect of its buildings? What, in respect of its atmosphere? What is the cause of the great stillness in the eastern city? Why are there no country-houses around Damascus? What are these the proof of in any country? What would most strike a Damascene in the streets of London? Why are the streets in eastern cities made narrow and crooked? What effect has this upon the prospect? What are fine houses and streets proof of in a commercial nation? What do the mean low doors in Damascus indicate? For what purpose are stones set up at the door-posts?

THE SOLDIER'S GRAVE.

THERE'S a white stone placed upon yonder tomb-
Beneath is a soldier lying;

The death-wound came amid sword and plume,
When banner and ball were flying.

Yet now he sleeps, the turf on his breast,

By wet wild-flowers surrounded;

The church shadow falls o'er the place of his rest,
Where the steps of his childhood 'bounded.

There were tears that fell from manly eyes,
There was woman's gentle weeping,

And the wailing of age and infant cries,
O'er the grave where he lies sleeping.

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He had left his home in his spirit's pride,
With his father's sword and blessing;
He stood with the valiant side by side,
His country's wrongs 'redressing.

He came again in the light of his fame,
When the red campaign was over;
One heart that in secret had kept his name,
Was claimed by the soldier lover.

But the cloud of strife came up on the sky;
He left his sweet home for battle,
Left his young child's lisp for the loud war-cry,
And the cannon's long death-rattle.

He came again—but an 'altered man :
The path of the grave was before him,
And the smile that he wore was cold and wan,
For the shadow of death hung o'er him.

He spoke of victory-spoke of cheer:
These are words that are 'vainly spoken
To the childless mother or orphan's ear,
Or the widow whose heart is broken.

A helmet and sword are 'engraved on the stone,
Half hidden by yonder willow;

There he sleeps, whose death in battle was won,
But who died on his own home pillow!

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OUR cities are filled and ornamented with hotels, coffee-houses, hospitals, work-houses, prisons, and similar conspicuous buildings. Generally speaking, there are none of these in the East. Hospitals and institutions for the sick and the poor were the offspring of Christianity, and are, I am inclined to think, peculiar to Christian lands.

There are few prisons in the East, and these are very wretched. Imprisonment as a punishment is little practised, and is altogether 'unsuited to the Mohammedan law and mode

of thinking. Life is not so sacred as with us. It is urged that if a man deserves to be confined as a dangerous member of society, he deserves to die; society will never miss him, and some expense will be spared: "Off with his head; so much

for Buckingham."

Hence in Damascus, and in the East generally, people are not liable to the reproach which is sometimes brought against us— that the best house in the county is the jail. Besides, in the East, punishment follows crime 'instantaneously. The judge, the mufti,2 the prisoner, and the executioner, are all in the court at the same time. As soon as the sentence is delivered, the back is made bare, the donkey is ready (for 'perjury, in Damascus, the man rides through the city with his face to the tail), or the head falls, according to the crime, in the presence of all the people. Awful severity, and the rapidity of lightning, are the principles of their laws; nor do they deem it necessary to make the exact and minute distinctions of crime that we do. The object is to prevent crime, and this is most 'effectually done by the principle of terror and the certainty of immediate punishment.

A certain baker in Constantinople used false weights in selling his bread: the Sultan ordered him to be roasted alive in his own oven, and afterwards boasted that this one act of severity had effectually prevented all similar crimes. Here you see the principle of government in the East;—it is nothing but terror and religious fanaticism.

As to coffee-houses, there are plenty of them in Damascus ; but they can hardly be called houses, much less palaces: they are open courts with fountains of water, sheltered from the sun; and in many cases they have little stools, some six inches high, on which, if you do not prefer the ground, you can rest while you enjoy your sherbet, coffee, and tobacco. Pipes, nargilies,3 ices, eau sucré,4 sherbet, and fruits of all kinds, are in abundance, and of the lowest possible price.

These cafés are very quiet: there is no excitement, no reading of newspapers, no discussion of politics and religion; no fiery demagogue or popular orator to mislead the people; no Attic wit provokes a smile, and no bold repartee calls forth *applauding laughter on the other side. But yet they have their own amusements, and they play earnestly at games both of chance and of skill. The traveller tells his escapes and dangers to an admiring little circle; the story-teller repeats one of the "Thousand and One Nights" to a wondering audience;

and if memory fails, the imagination, fertile as an oriental spring, supplies its boundless stores.

7

We have in the East great khans, but they bear little relation to our hotels. Ring, eat, and pay, is not the law in the East. They have no bells in Damascus, nor even the silver call or whistle which our grandmothers used in England. Bells in churches and in houses are alike an abomination to the Moslems; and the Maronites alone, by 'permission of the Government, have a right to use them.

The Khan in Damascus is a large circular building surmounted by a noble dome, in which the great merchants have their goods and wares of all kinds; and in which the traveller can find a resting-place for himself and his camels, and be supplied with water from the central fountain;—but there are no tables spread for the travellers, and no beds ready made for the weary pilgrims: you must find your dinner as you best can, make your own bed, and when you rise, take it up, and walk. The Khan is, however, a very noble building, and excites not a little ⚫astonishment among the Orientals.

In European cities your attention is arrested by book-shops, pictures, placards, caricatures, &c. ; now in Damascus we have nothing of the sort. Among the Jews you may find a few miserable stalls, from which you may pick up a copy of the Talmud, or some old rabbinical prayer-book.10 The sheikh11 who sold me the Koran,12 laid his hand upon his neck, and told me to be silent, for were it known that he had done so, he might lose his head. In the schools they are taught only to read the Koran, and to master the simplest elements of arithmetic and writing.

Men of letters there are at present none, and the highest of their sciences is the knowledge of grammar. When I lived in Damascus, some wit (the first thing of the kind known) uttered a pun or squib reflecting on the 'corpulency of the pasha, and he was banished for it! The old observation of the caliph, as he fired the Alexandrian library, 13 holds true in the East still—“ If the books agree with the Koran, they are useless; if they oppose it, they are 'pernicious; and in both cases they are unnecessary." "But has not Damascus one hundred thousand inhabitants?"

says the traveller. "Where are their newspapers, spreading light and knowledge through a portion of the sixty millions who use the noble Arabic language? Take me to the office of some Oriental Sun, Times, Globe, or Morning Chronicle."

There is no such thing. Even in Constantinople there is only one newspaper, and the one half of it is in Turkish, and the

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