barrier, passing along the edges of smooth precipices, where the narrow unguarded pathway always seemed to slope downwards, now checked by a mountain-stream, ascending again through a more lightly wooded, though bleak country, where the blue grape hyacinth* peeped from under the very masses of hardened snow, and the mistletoe and ivy reminded me of home. Thus we travelled onward.

Along a deep valley, whose rocks seemed inhabited only by buzzards, we pursued the course of a stream, and once more crossing a ridge of hills, night overtook us in another valley, watered by a gently rippling brook. Here I began to fear that our guide had mistaken his way; and on insinuating to him that such was the case, he denied it in such a dismal tone as left no doubt upon my mind. It was certainly not a pleasant thing to be lost in such dreadful roads as these, the darkness so great that we could not go more than a foot's pace, and the cold in this region being very severe. Until then visionary notions of a warm supper, a thick blanket, and shelter from the night dews, had kept us all in good spirits; but the substitution of nocturnal wanderings in the cold and darkness, among

* Muscari botryoides.

mountains whose inhabitants were notorious for their love of pillage, was anything but agreeable. We remained in this state of suspense for some time, our bewildered Yussuf groping along, and occasionally shouting in hopes the muleteers might hear him. Contrary to my expectations, after a long pause, a distant cry returned through the still night-air; and though it was at first by no means certain that the signal came from friendly beings, the barking of a dog and the screaming of Arab children announced soon after the joyful fact that a village was near. Never were children's screams more grateful; they revived our drooping energies: once more we urged our jaded horses, and in a few minutes. our tents stood before us, surrounded by all the children and idlers of the village.

'Twas scarcely dawn the next morning (April 9th) when we roused the lazy muleteers, broke our fast lightly with cold hard-boiled eggs, stale bread, and warm water and sugar (called by courtesy "tea"), mounted our horses, and left the village of Sarai, while the air blew keenly from the impending snow-covered mountains. The great change of temperature was often very trying to me; and had I not been well provided with warm clothing, as well as with the light dress of the country, the intense cold of the early

morning in these mountain regions, succeeded in a few hours by the equally violent heat of the sun's rays (which continue potent in this country from about eight in the morning till four in the afternoon), would have proved very injurious to health. There is, moreover, I apprehend, a less acute perception of extremes of temperature by travellers throughout Syria, on account of their constant exposure to the air, and the impossibility of being shut up during the hours of rest in close and heated apartments.

In about two hours we passed a pretty village, placed in a picturesque valley of the Anti-Libanus, and having the name of Zebdani, the traditional burying place of Zebulon. Here were many orchards, and the whole had an air of prosperity which called to my mind villages of more civilised countries. Here, too, I first observed the honey buzzard (Falco apivorus), a pair of which birds sat tamely on an apricot tree, and permitted me to approach very near to them. Their heads and bills are very small, and adapted I suppose to their practice of finding and pillaging the wild bees' nests. "Locusts and wild honey" are said to be their common food. Passing out of this valley, all along which Great Hermon, covered with snow, seemed to rise before us far away over the nearer hills, we entered a desert

rocky district, where dust, heat, and white cliffs, (the last cut into numberless small caverns for hermits, and robbers, and other misanthropic persons,) increased very much the fatigue of travel. We got, however, into a more luxuriant valley, along which a river was rapidly flowing, its muddy waters seeming to intimate its mountain origin, and we determined to halt, while under "the shadow of a great rock," in the vicinage of an Arab settlement.* We were by the side of the river Barada, which waters the plain of Damascus, and gives the name of " Wady Barada" to the valley. We had ridden four hours and a half, and were fatigued from the sultryness of the day, which indeed was so great that we were compelled again to mount, after a short hour's rest; it was better to get what air we could on horseback than to sit panting, feverish, and sleepless in the heated shade.

For five hours longer did we ride over burning, stony, shadeless hills, or by the side of rapid Barada, by glaring, fiery chalk-cliffs. Sometimes, indeed, a little glade with grass, and trees, and

* I should observe that, high in the rocks before reaching this place, I observed many broken columns; and in the wall of a house in the village itself a fine Corinthian capital.

scented hawthorn, now in blossom, arrested our steps by its welcome verdure and shade; but then, when left behind, these fairy "oases" served but to make us feel the fierce, relentless, burnt-up desert more. Away! speed faster; though the heat wring drops of perspiration from your brow, though the brain throb, and the lungs pant to catch a breath of fresher air, 'tis terrible to tread with idle measured steps this natural furnace. And so the flints roll down into the river, as your foaming horse tears them, in his headlong way, from off the crumbling barren chalk-cliffs. We arrive at a small village on the water, pause, take a little cup of thick coffee, receive the "salaams" of a wondering multitude of bearded smokers assembled in the open coffee-house, then jump again into the saddle and brave anew the scorching sunbeams. And now, even the heat is incapable of restraining our feelings of interest, as we mount these stony hills; each would be first to reach the point from whence we hope to see Damascus, yet still another intervening ridge prevents the wished-for view. Suddenly Yussuf utters a wild cry, and dashes forwards as though he were demented. Saloom soon follows his erratic companion, and Yussuf, the Arab, with louder shouts wakes up his slumbering lankylooking steed, flourishes his firelock over his