Barker's family about noon, and, accompanied by his son, and one of his native assistants, named Nahoom, we assembled, with the friends of Hadjee Abd-el-Rakhmān, at a fountain on the public road, about a mile from Mr. Barker's country residence, in the environs of Aleppo. Having taken coffee here together, as a pledge of our future union, and watered our horses, we remounted and set out on our way. The friends of each party still accompanied us for a few miles on the road, when, at last, our final separation took place, with many warm and friendly adieus, and we now felt ourselves to be fairly on our journey.

Our route lay nearly north, along the eastern edge of the river of Aleppo, which ran on our left. The only appearance of verdure seen about its banks, is that created by the winding course of the stream itself, the borders of which are fringed with trees and gardens, very thickly planted. Beyond its immediate banks, the soil is dry, and the hills bare and stoney throughout the whole of the way to its source, which we reached about sun-set. Here several winding streams, all rising from the same spring, watered a small hollow plain in which a Turcoman horde was encamped.

The form and arrangement of the tents of these people, and the general aspect of the whole of their camp, was extremely different from that of the Arabs, among whom I had so recently sojourned. With the latter, it is the custom to have their tents mostly of an oblong form, closed on three sides, and open on the fourth; made altogether of hair cloth; and the several tents generally arranged in the form of a great circle, for the sake of preventing the escape of the animals confined within its limits. Here, among the Turcomans, the form of most of the tents seemed nearly round, instead of oblong, with a small door of entrance, instead of one entirely open front; or, when otherwise, it was open only at one of the narrow ends, and not at the side, with an awning, or porch, at the door-way. The roofs of these tents were the only parts formed of hair cloth (of which material the tents of the Desert Arabs are entirely made); the sides of these of the Turcomans being formed of matted reeds. Neither

was there any order in the arrangement of the tents themselves, as they were scattered quite at random over the plain. Besides goats and camels, the usual inmates of these camps, there were here an abundance of sheep, asses, bullocks, horses, and even buffaloes and fowls; animals which belong only to a stationary life, and which marked the people among whom they were found, as of less wandering habits than their southern neighbours, the Arabs. They were, indeed, a stouter and better-fed race; and even their dogs, the guardians of their camps, were larger, more hairy, and, altogether, characterized by the greater abundance amidst which both they and their masters lived.

In our way from Aleppo thus far, we had passed several ruined villages, leaving them all on our left, and had remarked that the houses were distinguished by a high pointed dome of brick-work, rising from the square of their base. of their base. We lost sight of these, however, as we ascended from this place of encampment over a bare rising ground, and then gradually sunk our level by a very slow descent.

As it was now dark, and so cloudy that even the stars were hidden from our view, we soon lost the beaten track, and wandered about to the right and left, according to the directing voice which for the moment prevailed. It was in this state of confusion that we were alarmed by a sudden shout from persons whom we could not yet perceive; and this being suspected to be a signal of attack upon our party, we closed our ranks, and rushed forward together to receive it. Two muskets were discharged at us, but their balls passed without wounding any person, though not without being returned threefold by our party, seemingly with as little execution. This display of vigilance had the effect, however, of repressing any future attempt; and the men who were seen, heading the attack, speedily dispersed and fled.

It was nearly midnight before we reached the great body of the caravan; and we then only discovered its place of encampment, by sending off one of our own party to each of the four quarters of the

horizon, to shout and discharge a musket, which being at length heard, the returning of the signal directed us to the spot.

We found a tent erected for the Hadjee Abd-el-Rakhmān, and his suite, in which the embers of a fire were still burning; when, taking shelter beneath it, we were welcomed by a cup of coffee and the congratulations of friends, and sank, soon after, to repose.

MAY 28th.-Every individual of the caravan was seen stirring with the earliest dawn; and as this was the first morning of our departure from a station beyond the town, a considerable degree of bustle prevailed among the servants and camel-drivers, and an equal anxiety among the merchants or owners of the property embarked, to see it safely laden, and to take care that nothing remained behind. At sun-rise we were all in motion, to the number, perhaps, of four hundred camels, which was thought rather a small caravan: the asses, mules, and horses that accompanied it, might amount to another hundred; and the whole number of persons, including men, women, and children, were about three hundred at least.

Our course had been nearly north, throughout the whole of the preceding day, but it now bent towards the north-east, in pursuing which direction we reached, in an hour after setting out, a village called Oktereen. There was a smaller one, about a mile to the north of it, which bore the same name, and both were at this moment inhabited by peasants who cultivated rich corn lands on a fine red soil, and of great extent. The style of building in both of these villages, like that of the ruined ones we had already passed, was remarkable, each separate dwelling having a high pointed dome of unburnt bricks, raised on a square fabric of stone; so that, at a little distance, they resembled a cluster of bee-hives on square pedestals.

In the village through which we passed, was a khan or caravanserai of Mohammedan construction, and good masonry, though now seldom resorted to by travellers. Near it was a high round eminence, enclosed by a circular wall, formed of very large masses of unhewn stone, rudely put together without cement. This is called the

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Castle, but over all the hill there appear no other vestiges of building than this, which I should consider to be a work of the very earliest ages of antiquity. The stones are, in general, much too large to be moved by mere manual labour, estimating the strength of man at its present standard; and yet one would conceive, that if the people, by whom they were placed here, used the aid of any instruments for that purpose, they would also have hewn them into regular forms, for additional strength. But, like most other works of ancient labour, the very simplicity of their construction excites problems the most difficult of solution.

Near the foot of the hill, but without its wall of enclosure, are deep wells, containing excellent water, of which we drank, as we passed, from the pitchers of some women of the neighbourhood. The vessels used by them are broad at the bottom, narrow at the top, and about two feet high, with a thick handle on each side. They are all of copper, tinned within and without; nor did we see a single vessel of earthenware among them. The dress of the females was mostly of blue cotton cloth; some of the younger girls were pretty, and all had fairer and more ruddy complexions than we had lately been accustomed to see.

From hence, the high range of Mount Taurus was visible on our left, to the north-west, and seemed to be nearly in a line with our route, or to run in a north-east and south-west direction. Many of its rugged summits were covered with snow; and from their appearance, as they intercepted our horizon but slightly in that quarter, it was evident that our own level was also a very elevated one.

While halting at the well of Oktereen, there came to drink a poor ass of our own caravan, who had lost from the thickest part of his thighs behind, between the knee and the tail, at least an English pound of flesh from each, and yet still walked freely, without any apparent suffering. The blood remained clotted in streams below the wounds; and, on inquiry, it appeared that he had been torn in this manner, only two nights before, by a hyæna, while the caravan was encamped at Hailan, a few hours' distance from Aleppo. Bruce's

account of the Abyssinians cutting steaks from a live ox, sewing up the wound, and driving the beast on his journey, had always, until now, appeared to me difficult of belief; not from the cruelty of the act, for that would weigh but little with people of their character, but from my conceiving that no animal could, after being so treated, pursue its march. Here, however, I saw before me a similar fact, one which I confess surprised me, but to which I could not refuse credence, as it was confirmed by the evidence of my senses.

In an hour from Oktereen, we came to another village of the same name, each of these being called by that of the district in which they stand. The pointed dome-tops to the dwellings were now no longer seen, all the houses being flat-roofed, with terraces. As we stopped at this place to drink milk, we had an opportunity of seeing the method followed by its inhabitants in making butter. The milk is first put into a goat's skin, without being scalded, and a small space is left in this for air and motion; the skin is then hung by cords to a peg in the side of the wall, or suspended to a sort of sheers, formed by three poles, in the open court; it is then pushed to and fro, until its motion in the skin shall have been sufficient to churn it; when the watery part is thrown off, and the thick part stirred by the hand until it becomes of the oiliness and consistency required.* Such of the women as we saw here were really handsome; all of them were unveiled, and displayed blooming complexions and agreeable features, not disfigured by stains of any kind. As an additional charm, they were remarkably clean and well dressed, with white or red trowsers, white upper garments, wreaths of gold coin across their foreheads, and their long black hair hanging in tresses over their shoulders.

* The Bedouin Arabs practise the same method.-" Dans une peau de chèvre, encore garnie de ses poils, ils mettent le lait, comme dans une outre. Une femme Bedouine, après avoir fortement noué les deux bouts, et suspendu le tout à une branche d'arbre, en secouant l'outre de toute sa force, parvient à faire le beurre."-CASTELLAN, Mœurs des Ottomans. t. vi. p. 60.

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