It was sunset when we entered Assalt, which lies on the eastern brow of the hill whereon the castle stands, and which is therefore not seen when approaching from the west, until the traveller turns suddenly round to the right, and finds himself among the houses. The scene was new and interesting; and the pleasure which I felt at having attained this first point in my journey, made me view every thing through the most favourable medium. The whole of the town was filled with snow, the streets being in some places almost impassable; and the terraces of the houses, which, from the steepness of the hill, rose one above the other like steps, presented a number of square and snow-white masses, like sheets exposed on the ground to dry. The inhabitants, including men,

women, and children, were clothed in sheep-skin jackets, with the skin, looking like red leather, turned outside, and the wool within ; while the florid complexions and the light-brown hair of the people gave to the whole an appearance of a scene in the north of Europe, rather than one in the southern part of so hot a region as Syria, and bordering, too, upon the parched deserts of Arabia Petræa.

We were conducted to the house of one of the most wealthy inhabitants, a Christian, named Aioobe or Job, who was reputed to be one of the greatest traders in the country. Like Job of old, this man was rich in abundance of flocks and cattle, was blessed with sons and daughters, and was as renowned for his piety, as he was celebrated for his wealth.

company that

Our reception at his house was warm and hospitable; and we were offered every accommodation that it afforded. When supper was served up to us, almost all the heads of families in the town came to visit us, as strangers: the arrival of new persons among them exciting a sensation of curiosity which extended itself through all classes. There being no Mohammedans present, my guide and companion, Georgis, took care to inform the whole I was an Englishman. As to the fact of my being a Christian, he said it was difficult for him to decide, as some persons imagined the English to have no religion at all, and others contended, that though Christianity was nominally the prevailing faith of the country, it was altogether so remote from that of the Greek church, to which they belonged, that it did not deserve the name. This subject became one of lively interest to the party, and was discussed with great earnestness by most of those who were present; but having at length come to the determination that the English were neither Moslems, Jews, nor Catholics, the three great sects which they consider inimical to their own, I was received by all as a friend, and welcomed accordingly.

In the course of the evening, the conversation turned on the visits of Dr. Seetzen and Mr. Burckhardt to this town. The former

was known by the name of Hakim Moosa, and the latter by the name of Sheikh Ibrahim. Both of these travellers were habited in the same manner as I had found it necessary to be, namely, in the dress of a Bedouin Arab; each of them wore a beard, and spoke the Arabic language; the former very imperfectly, the latter tolerably well. In the company of Mohammedans, these travellers preserved the appearance and profession of the Moslem faith; but with the Greek and Catholic Christians, who abound on the east of the Jordan, they passed invariably as Englishmen, and were well treated on that account; although Dr. Seetzen was a German, and Mr. Burckhardt a Swiss. The former of these travelled always on foot, accompanied by an Arab guide, to whom he gave a Spanish dollar per day, which was considered a munificent reward; and it is said, that the chief objects of his enquiry were the mineral and vegetable productions of the country, with such curiosities in natural history as fell in his way, to the collection and examination of which his mode of journeying was particularly favourable. Mr. Burckhardt usually rode, either on a camel, a mare, or an ass; and the chief objects of his pursuit were thought to be antiquities, geography, and the manners of the people. These were the impressions that I gathered from the conversation of the party regarding these distinguished travellers, who were well known to most of the persons present, as each of them had made a stay of many days at this place.

Our supper was followed by card-parties, which assembled in different quarters of the room, all sitting on the ground, and having stools of about a foot in height to serve for card-tables. The games played were various; one of them, however, resembled Quadrille, and another Loo. The cards were dealt and played backward, or from right to left, and the names of the suits were Italian, though not all correctly applied; spades being called bastoni; clubs, spadi; diamonds, argenti; and hearts, cuori. The parties played for money; but though the sums staked were

small, it was sufficient to agitate very warm disputes among the players.

We broke up early, dispersing before nine o'clock, when we were taken to another house to sleep. The mistress of it, who was a widow, and related to my guide, received us kindly, and insisted on going through the ceremony of washing my feet, observed, as I understood, among the Christians of Assalt to all strangers who come among them as guests or visitors. The house in which we were now lodged, consisting of two rooms only, one above the other, I naturally concluded that the widow and her children would have slept in one of these, and that Georgis and myself would have occupied the other. It was otherwise arranged, however; the lower room was used in the daytime for all the purposes of cooking, and other household labour, and at night was converted into a bedroom; while the upper story was made entirely a storehouse for the secure keeping of provisions, clothes, and other articles, put under lock and key. Mats were therefore spread for us all on the lower floor; and what struck me as a remarkable feature of the arrangement was this, that while the widow, who was not more than 30 years of age, lay in the middle of the room, Georgis and I were directed to lie on each side of her, and the young children were placed beyond us respectively; leaving scarcely two feet space between each person, as the room was not more than twelve or fifteen feet square. It did not appear to be the custom of the place to undress for sleep, as each lay down in the garments worn during the day. Our rest was, however, occasionally disturbed during the night; and as neither of the parties had any specific bounds assigned, I found the widow rolling alternately toward Georgis or myself, as she turned sides for relief; so that we often pressed closer on each other than was at first intended, and might be literally said to have slept all in one bed.

Assalt, Saturday, February 24. accompanied by thunder, lightning,

The day broke in tempests,

and hail. The storm was

indeed awful, and the aspect of the weather throughout the day was such as to forbid all hope of our moving on our journey. The high wind was productive of terrible consequences to some of the inhabitants, as we witnessed, indeed, from the door of our dwelling. Before the gale commenced the ground was already covered with snow; and the thunder and hail of the morning being followed by violent gusts of whirlwind and torrents of rain, some of the cliffy parts of the mountain broke away, and the lower parts of the town which filled the valley beneath these cliffs became buried under the fallen masses of rock, earth, and snow, by which many of the inhabitants were severely hurt, and such of their cattle as were not crushed by the fall of these masses very narrowly escaped drowning in the accumulated floods and pools which filled the obstructed hollows of the vale throughout.

Notwithstanding the tempestuous weather, which continued with little intermission during the day, we had a number of curious visitors, who came to enquire of us the news of other parts, and from whom I was equally glad to gather some local information in

return.

In the course of the day the two Arabs of the tribe of Beni Abad, who had been our guides from the mosque of Abu-el-Beady to the passage of the Zerkah, came all the way from thence to Assalt to demand the restitution of their garments, thrown off by them when they quitted us on the mountain to go to the assistance of their fellow-robbers in the plain below. My guide, Georgis, who had retained these garments as a security for their return of his musket, carried off by them at the same time, expressed his willingness to restore them the moment the musket was produced. They replied that this was impossible; as it had been taken from them by the owners of the stolen cattle, who had rescued their property, disarmed the robbers, and succeeded in bearing back the spoil in triumph to their own camp. They contended, therefore, that the musket was lost by the will of God; and that it was both irreligious and unjust to demand its restoration; a demand, indeed,

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