the late long drought, which had continued from October to the present month, excepting only two or three days' fall about a week since. The heavy rains are generally in December, and in January the country is verdant thoughout. At this moment, they were only ploughing a hard soil, and tillage was every where retarded.

Departing from this village, we had the plain below it on our left, and at three we entered again on desert ground, covered with sand, wild grass, and bushes. At four, we came to a narrow fertile pass, where we remarked caves and grottoes on each side, as seen before, but could not alight to examine them.

From hence we ascended to an elevated plain, where husbandmen were sowing, and some thousands of starlings covered the ground, as the wild pigeons do in Egypt, laying a heavy contribution on the grain thrown into the furrows, which is not covered by harrowing, as in Europe.

Continuing along this elevated plain, we came at six to the village of Heram, at a short distance from which, on the left, just before entering it, we again saw caves and other marks of excavated dwellings, as at Waad-el-Ajul.

This village, which is seated on a high promontory, overlooking the sea, has not more than forty or fifty dwellings, yet possesses a mosque with a minareh, the approach to which is over a small green plat, with a worn foot-path winding up through its centre, like the entrances to many of our country churches in England.

We passed into the court of the mosque, and, alighting there, found shelter for ourselves and beasts, in a shed erected for the accommodation of travellers, and attached to the building. Our hunger was extreme on arriving here, and we despatched our muleteer to search for food; but he returned, assuring us that some of the villagers had already lain down to sleep, others had finished their suppers, and had nothing eatable in their huts, and others, who possessed flour, would neither part with that nor make us bread. It seemed to me so impossible that a whole village could be thus destitute, that I went out myself, but my success was little

better, as we returned with a few fragments only of stale bread, and a little lamp oil. On the bread alone I made a scanty supper, assisted by a pipe, which is certainly an allayer of hunger; my servant and our guide, boiling some coarse grain which was used as food for the mules, and moistening it with oil, made also a temporary meal, and we were soon after lulled asleep by the roaring of the sea below.

JANUARY 16th. We were awakened by the day-break call to prayer from the gallery of the mosque above us, and at six o'clock we left our cold and comfortless lodging by the moon-light.

Descending to the beach, we continued along the coast under brown cliffs and hills, and came in about two hours to the outlet of a small river called Nahr-el-Arsoof, which, being shallow, we easily forded. We could not perceive any ruins there, though

U

D'Anville has placed the site of Apollonias* at the mouth of the stream called Arsoof, and the historians of the Crusades speak of a castle at this place. †

Keeping still along the sea-shore, we came in half an hour to a little-domed fountain on the brow of the cliff, and observed that the beach beneath was covered with small shells, to the depth of several feet.

We now approached Jaffa, over a desert soil. This town, seated on a promontory, and facing chiefly to the northward, looks like a heap of buildings crowded as closely as possible into a given space; and, from the steepness of its site, these buildings appear in some places to stand one on the other. The most prominent features of the architecture from without, are the flattened domes by which most of the buildings are crowned, and the appearance of arched vaults. There are no light and elegant edifices, no towering minarehs, no imposing fortifications, but all is mean and of a dull and gloomy aspect.

Turning up from the beach a little to the left, we passed through a Mohammedan burying-ground, and came to the great gate in the eastern wall, before which lay six fragments of grey granite columns. The walls and fortifications have a weak and contemptible appearance, compared even with those of Accho; as at that place, the entrance is prepossessing, but its interior disappoints the expectations raised. After passing a gate crowned with three small cupolas, there is seen on the right a gaudy fountain, faced with marble slabs, and decorated with painted devices and Arabic sentences in characters of gold. Passing within, however, the town has all the appearance of a poor village, and every part of it that we saw was of corresponding meanness.

Apollonia is enumerated among the cities of the sea-coast by Josephus, and the order in which it is mentioned seems to fix it between Cæsarea and Joppa, though its exact distance from either of these is not given. The stream on which it is seated on D'Anville's map is, however, placed farther to the northward of Jaffa than this.

+ "Bedreddin a Taberzam, avec d'autres emirs, prirent par l'épée les châteaux de Césarée et d'Arsoof." Voyez, Les Mines de l'Orient, tome iii. p. 81. en folio.

It is seated on a hill, and walled all around as far as we could trace, except towards the sea; the walls are irregular, and weak, and were apparently built at different periods. We saw not more than twelve pieces of cannon mounted, and observed many of the covered arches, intended for musketry, to be filled up with dead horse's bones and other rubbish. The inhabitants here dress like the people of Damietta, wearing a costume intermediate between that of Syria and Egypt, but a still greater poverty seemed to reign throughout all classes.

After ascending and descending hilly streets, we at length reached the house of Signor Damiani, the English Consul, and were received there by his domestics. The consul himself soon arrived, and presented one of the most singular mixtures of European and Asiatic costume that we had yet witnessed. His dress consisted of the long robes of the east, surmounted by a powdered bag-wig, a cocked hat with anchor buttons and black cockade, and a gold-headed cane, all of the oldest fashion. The airs and grimace of his behaviour were that of a French frizeur rather than of an old government-officer; and, indeed, there was nothing about him that seemed consistent with the notions that are generally entertained of consular dignity.

We were shown into a miserable hovel, which was dignified with the name of the British residence, though darker, dirtier, and more wretchedly furnished than the meanest cottage of England. Here, too, we were first consoled by the news that there was a British fleet of eighty sail of the line before Egypt, and that all the consuls of the Levant were flying for safety; and next assailed with a train of questions which, luckily, were followed up so closely as to leave no intervals for answering them. "Are you a Milord ?” "Are not the Protestants Jews? If not, are the English entirely without religion, or are they idolaters, unbelievers, or heretics?" "Is not St. Helena, where Bonaparte is banished, five thousand leagues to the north of England, in the Frozen Sea?" &c. &c.