ancient names of provinces, mountains, rivers, and promontories have been determined, the latitude and longitude accurately ascertained, antique marbles described, the plans and measures of buildings taken, their history and the nature of their construction minutely given, inscriptions copied, and coins learnedly criticised. Many smaller and more unpretending works, recently published, give sketches of the present political condition of the Orientalists, of the late changes in their government, and some illustrations of national characteristics and peculiarities.

The traveller, therefore, desirous of making the tour of the Mediterranean, of visiting the most remarkable of the ruins, the most interesting of the modern cities and, some of the most renowned sites of antiquity, is obliged to dive into many ponderous tomes to obtain the necessary information. On Greece, Constantinople, Asia Minor, and Syria, he finds various volumes displaying much classic learning, though frequently but little information on the mode of travelling, on the best route to take, or on the time occupied between the different halting places.

The following volumes are descriptive of a tour from Malta round the Mediterranean to Damascus and Palmyra, two of the most interesting places in the East; the one remarkable for the beauty of its environs, its striking oriental aspect, its magnitude and antiquity, and the peculiar characteristics of its

native population; the other for its brilliant and romantic history, its magnificent ruins, and their extraordinary position on the edge of the great Syrian desert.

The first volume treats of the route to the coast of Syria, by way of Constantinople, and portrays the sad state of Greece, under Bavarian misrule, its impoverished condition and its desolate aspect, “Fuit quondam Græcia, fuerunt in Græcia Athenæ, nunc neque Athenæ, neque in ipsâ Græciâ, Græcia est;" the antiquities and curiosities of "the city of the Sultan" are described; and the route thence through the ancient Bithynia and Phrygia to Sardis, once the capital of the kingdom of Lydia, and to Magnesia, one of the most populous and wealthy of the oriental towns, but little visited by Europeans. The journey then proceeds through the Grecian islands to Rhodes and Cyprus.

The second volume commences with a description of Syria; of the range of Mount Lebanon and its inhabitants; of the camp of Ibrahim Pasha, and of the court and castle of the Emir Beshir, the prince of the Druses; of the ruins of Baalbec, and of the route to Damascus.

This, the ancient capital of Syria, one of the wealthiest, and most populous, of oriental cities, has been scantily and insufficiently described by the few who have visited it. The fanaticism and bigotry of the inhabitants, have rendered it, until of late, an unpleasant and rather insecure sojourn for the European,

and have presented insuperable obstacles to the gratification of curiosity, and to a free intercourse with the different classes and grades of the population. The lawless and intolerant spirit of the people has, however, been lately happily checked by the vigorous and impartial administration of the new government under Ibrahim Pasha; and the establishment of a British Consul General, and the consequent residence of some English merchants in the city, have accustomed the population to the sight of Franks, and diminished many prejudices formerly entertained against Europeans.

It was the author's fortune to visit Damascus with a large party of his countrymen, to occupy for some weeks one of the handsomest villas in the environs, and to meet with many novel events and circumstances, which may prove, perhaps, not unamusing to the English reader.

Through the kindness of the British Consul General, and by means of his influence with a tribe of Bedouin Arabs who pasture their flocks in the desert bordering Damascus, he was enabled, with his companions, to make the excursion from Damascus across the desert to Palmyra.

The celebrated ruins of that once flourishing city still excite the wonder of the traveller, and transfix his admiration by the peculiarity of their position, their extent, and their magnificence. Little has of late been written on Palmyra, and the descriptions that have appeared since the publication of the valu

able papers of the British merchants, who first discovered the ruins in 1691, are very meagre and very unimportant. The splendid architectural drawings of Messrs. Wood and Dawkins, published in 1760, give a happy idea of their pristine splendor, and of the extreme beauty and taste of their ornamental archi

tecture.

The rise and fall of this once famed capital of the East, are most striking; and the life of its lovely and unfortunate queen forms one of the most romantic episodes of history.

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But it is not Palmyra alone, or the associations and recollections connected with it, that attract the traveller to these relics of ancient glory and of past greatness. The journey thither, through a wild, deserted, and extraordinary country, such as few can have a conception of who have been familiar only with the cultivated fields and the highly populated districts of Europe, and the acquaintance there formed with the mode of life and the manners and customs of the Bedouins, the children of the desert, possess an interest almost surpassing that with which one views the funereal towers and the crumbling monuments of the ancient capital of Zenobia.

While in Europe every thing is changing, and old manners and customs are swept away by the tide of innovation, the curious traveller will observe among these people the most wonderful and intact preservation of ancient manners. He will see the Bedouin

constant in all things-in habits and mode of living, as in ages long since passed; so that on a close and attentive consideration of the characteristics of this peculiar people, and of their mode of life, he finds himself, as it were, carried back to the earliest ages of which we have any record-to the time of the patriarchs-and observes a faithful transcript of many customs described in the Old Testament, and many copies of pastoral scenes there vividly depicted.

He sees the inhabitants living in tents; their whole wealth consists in their flocks of goats and camels, and the old men, with gray hairs, still seat themselves at the "tent doors," as in the time of Father Abraham. The women may be perceived "dealing out measures of fine meal, kneading it, and making cakes upon the hearth," and the virtue of hospitality is still practised with religious scrupulousness, and the tender kid is still killed and dressed, and "served up with butter and milk," to the hungry and weary stranger. Thin cakes of unleavened bread, baked upon the hot ashes, still serve as the principal food of the people, and those who undertake a journey furnish themselves, at the present day, with "a bottle of water" and a provision of "bread," such as Abraham put upon the shoulder of Hagar, when he sent her away with the child, "and she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba."

The English traveller, in pursuing his journey over the wilderness to Palmyra, still has his watter-bottle