CRESCENT AND THE CROSS;

OR,

ROMANCE AND REALITIES

OF

EASTERN TRAVEL.

BY

ELIOT WARBURTON, ESQ.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

Third Edition.

LONDON:

HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,

GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

FREDERICK SHOBERL, JUNIOR,

PRINTER TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT, 51, RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET, LONDON.

P RE F A СЕ.

Immutability is the most striking characteristic of the East: from the ancient strife of Cain and Abel, to the present struggle between the Crescent and the Cross, its people remain in their habits of thought and action less changed than the countries they inhabit. The fertile Vale of Siddim has become the coffin of the Dead Sea, and the barriers of the Nile have rolled down from Ethiopia to the Delta; but the patriarch still "sits at the door of his tent on the Plain of Mamré," and the Egyptian still cultivates his river-given soil in the manner practised by the subjects of the Pharaohs.

Elsewhere, we can but dimly discern the actors and scenery of the Elder World through