tan's firman had been insulted by their inhospitality; that, instead of receiving pay for their vile goods, they ought to have their house burned over their heads; and that their beards should be shaved off to adorn jackasses.* Though annoyed at my dragoman's violence, I thought it necessary to support him, and the result was the most anxious civility: a large jar of milk and an earthen bowl of barley were eagerly presented to us by the women; all the blessings of Allah invoked upon our heads; and departing with our prize, we were respectfully escorted by young men who now appeared in all directions.

Our horses were fed, our supper eaten, and in half an hour I was seated quietly in the lately hostile farmhouse, smoking in the centre of a friendly circle as if I had been acquainted with them for years. A little powder for priming to the men, and a few trinkets to the women, raised me to the summit of popularity; when I retired to my tent for the night, my hand was covered with kisses, and Allah was entreated to take care that my shadow never should grow less.

This is a common specimen of Syrian life; the people, naturally kind and hospitable, live in such perpetual fear and distrust of all around them that their character misrepresents itself, and the traveller must often perforce act as his necessity, not his inclination, dictates.

The next morning, my tent was struck and the horses loaded before sunrise; but, even then, a Syrian damsel came out of the fortification with a bowl of fresh milk as a freewill offering. I was not a little pleased when she refused payment for her courtesy, though it cost me a coral necklace to reward it.

As I rode towards Acre, I met many travellers, all armed to the teeth; they drew close together as I approached, although alone, for my people had gladly joined company with some other way. farers as they were in enjoyment of security and society, I pushed on unattended towards the place of my destination. I soon overtook a Bedouin, who was splendidly mounted, and seem ed to welcome my arrival as a spectator of the prowess and

This is the usual style of address in this country from the stronger party; the expressions of civility are proportionably extravagant.

beauty of his horse: the squalidness of his own appearance contrasted curiously with the proud carriage of the noble animal he rode, and the richness of his own arms. Observing my admiration, he dashed his sharp stirrups into his horse's flanks; flew forward, and wheeled round me at a gallop, whirling his tufted spear above his head with loud cries, and then pulling up short beside me. He was then in high good humour; he even praised my horse, and proceeded to eulogize the English and Ibrahim Pasha, who appears at present to be considered as the hero of the East. We were then in sight of Acre, and I asked him if he remembered our bombardment: suddenly his countenance lighted up as if it reflected the magnificent explosion, and he exclaimed, "Ibrahim Pasha, taib, taib!" (very good)" pop! pop! pop!""Ingeleez, taib kheteer" (excellent)" hoo! Bombe !" and, so saying, he shot his lance high into the air, to illustrate the explosion as compared with the Egyptian's fusillade.

*

We now approached the encampment of his tribe, which he pointed out, and asked me to accompany him thither. I declined the tempting invitation, and soon afterwards reached Acre, where, they say, it will require ten years of labour to repair the effects of the English fire.

Ptolemais, Acre, or, as the Syrians call it, Akka, is imposinglooking from the outside; but within, it is poor, dirty, and irregularly built. Some hundred Turkish soldiers and many impressed peasants were at work upon the fortifications; but there was little other appearance of activity or life within its silent

streets.

Beyrout, Sidon, and Tyre, had been successively captured for the Turks by our squadron under Commodore Napier, almost as rapidly as he could cruise along the coast. On the 3rd November, 1840, Admiral Stopford was joined by the Commodore off Acre, and, a flag of truce being rejected, they went to work at once. The town was commanded, and the artillery directed by Colonel Schultze, a Pole in Mehemet Ali's service he was known in the Egyptian army as Youssef Aga, and had obtained considerable distinction in the Syrian war. He found the guns upon

* The English.

the fortifications very badly mounted; and, as the artillerymen were proportionately inefficient, he laid the guns himself so as to command the line of buoys placed at night by the British boats, concluding that they marked the stations which our ships were to occupy. Unfortunately for his plans, these buoys only marked the soundings-the path, and not the resting-places-af our gallant fleet. The powerful steam-frigates required no mooringsrunning in close under the walls, they took up their positions, and laid their guns with as much precision as so many batteries of horse-artillery; the rest of the squadron separating into two divisions, opened a cross-fire from the north and south-west upon the town. The Phoenix. with the Admiral on board, began the action about noon, and plied her powerful artillery with such accuracy, that she cleared and dismounted every gun upon the fortifications, where her shot could find space enough in the embrazures to enter by many of our ships, especially the Castor frigate, were anchored within musket-shot; and the rattle of innumerable small arms filled up the momentary pauses left by the booming of a thousand guns.

The whole mass of the lofty fortifications appeared like one great volcanic mountain, enveloped in a pyramid of cloud-like smoke, through which the lightnings flashed, and the thunder pealed from every battlement and bastion. The ships, too, were each enveloped in its own canopy of flame-pierced smoke, surrounding the fiery promontory like a Liparian Cyclades: the day was gloriously bright; and the glimpses of the magnificent scenery around, appearing through vistas of white smoke-clouds reflected in the water, were described to me by an eye-witness as producing the grandest conceivable effect. The cannonade seemed to reach its climax in the explosion of the powder-maga. zine of Acre, which through all the brilliant sunshine threw a glare upon the distant hills, and sent two thousand Egyptians in fragments to the skies: the batteries to the southward then ceased to fire, from want of hands to work the guns, but those to the northward were fought bravely to the last. In the night, the Egyptians evacuated the town; and on the following morning the British and their allies took undisputed possession of the strongest fortress in the Levant.

It was not the strength of these fortifications, however, powerful as they were, but the desperate resistance of the British and those whom they animated, that beat back Napoleon from these walls. "Yonder is the key of the East," said he to Murat, as he sat down before Acre on the 18th of March, 1799.* When nine murderous but vain assaults, sixty days' suspense, and the ravages of the Plague, had "affoiblissé le moral du soldat" and avenged the wholesale massacre of Jaffa, the French retired from the siege, and entered Cairo under an arch of triumph!

But it is to the Crusades that Acre owes its chief interest. It was to them, as to Napoleon, the "Key of the East." Its old walls have echoed to the war-cry of the lion-hearted Richard, and the chivalrous Saladin; and there are few of our ancient English families whose ancestors were not to be found among the Christian host under these beleaguered towers.

• Expeditions en Egypt et en Syrie. Par J. Miot, 2d edition.

CHAPTER V.

THE BIVOUAC, AND MOUNT CARMEL

The hot sun shrinks from the land of the Kurd,
As the welcome cry to halt is heard.

Weary and faint were they who had striven,
Through the sultry hours when that sign was given :
From the courser's back each has loosed his rein,

And he feeds at will on the verdant plain,
Or drinks of the fount that is gushing by,
While the evening breeze wakes rejoicingly.
And Arab and Frank in brotherhood share
A luxurious rest in the perfumed air;

And that balmy sense of entire repose,

Which the trammelled spirit too seldom knows.

ANON.

I swear to thee, by my holy order, by the habit which I wear, by the Mountain of our blessed founder, Elias, even him who was translated without suffering the ordinary pangs of mortality.

The Talisman.

Towns in the East are so disagreeable, and have so few resources; the country is so beautiful and full of interest, that I always felt a lively pleasure in passing out from the guarded gates of some old city, to return to the tent, and the wild pathway of the plain or mountain. Travel in the East is the occupation of your whole time, not a mere passage from one place of residence to another. "Day after day, week after week, and month after month, your foot is in the stirrup. To taste the cold breath of the earliest morn, and to lead or follow your bright cavalcade till sunset through forests and mountain passes, through valleys and desolate plains-all this becomes your mode of life; and you ride, eat, drink, and curse the mosquitoes, as systematically as your friends in England eat, drink, and sleep. If you are wise,