inhabitants had contrived to incorporate with their religious profession, made so ineffectual an attempt to re-establish the expiring Paganism upon the ruins of Christianity. Here, in short, for the chronicles of Antioch would fill a volume of themselves, the golden-mouthed Chrysostom displayed his eloquence and his virtues, until he was translated almost by force to the superior dignity of the see of Constantinople.

Having been overwhelmed by successive earthquakes, it was rebuilt by Justinian, who gave it the name of Theopolis, or, the City of God. During the declining days of the Roman empire, it was repeatedly lost and regained by the Christians, Persians, and Saracens, from the last of whom it was taken, after infinite sufferings, by the Crusaders, under Godfrey de Bouillon. It continued to be a place of great importance during the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, until it was finally taken from them, and ruthlessly devastated by the ferocious Bibars, sultan of Egypt. Swept as it has been, again and again, by the sword of the conqueror, and all the concomitant horrors of war, earthquakes have yet been its greatest enemy. It is said that, in A.D. 588, above sixty thousand persons perished in one of these terrible convulsions; and the only wonder is that, after such repeated devastations, any trace of its original magnificence should be left behind.

Returning, after a few days' stay at Antioch, to see our hosts at Suadéa, we hired horses to convey us to Adona and Tarsus. We were now to traverse a region comparatively wild and unfrequented, but, owing to the presence of the Egyptian army, rendered, at this time, perfectly safe for travellers. Striking across the broad plain of the Orontes, we entered the mountains, and, following the line of the ancient Roman paved way, portions of which were yet remaining, arrived, in the evening, at Beilán, one of the most romantic places in Syria, and which gives its name to this pass through the defiles of Mount Amanus, anciently denominated" the Syrian Gates." This road had witnessed the passage of the armies of Cyrus and Alexander; and, in later

ages, the Crusaders and other warriors had marched along it; it had been trodden by the Apostle Paul and the early teachers of Christianity, hurrying to and fro on their errands of mercy and love; in fact, it constituted the only direct line of travel from Asia Minor and Cilicia into Syria. It is the line by which, in modern times, merchandise is conveyed from the port of Alexandretta to the city of Aleppo and the Euphrates; yet, so depopulated is the country, and so few the wayfarers, that we hardly encountered a human being on our way. It was at the head of the pass that Ibrahim Pasha defeated the advanced guard of the Turkish army, which he afterwards put to rout upon the plain of Konich.

By a winding descent of some hours, we reached the level of the sea, at the small town of Alexandretta, the port of Aleppo, situated in a morass, so pestilential, that it had proved fatal not only to most of the European residents, but also to the crews and captains of ships in the roads. We directed our steps to the house of M. Martinelli, agent to several Aleppo merchants, and who had succeeded in cutting a small canal, and thus, by draining the marshes, had rendered the place, in some degree, more salubrious. Thence we pushed on along the coast; for the rugged ridges of Mount Amanus, coming down to the water, leave here but a narrow pathway, at a short distance from the sea. This spot was called the Cilician Gate; and the remains of fortifications show that the natural obstacles to the approach of an invader were carefully strengthened. Hence the road descends into a narrow plain, intersected by two rivulets, where Pococke supposes the battle of Issus to have been fought. We then passed a rising ground, and reached the deserted town of Payass, the ancient Issus, where we were obliged to remain for the night.

Next day we resumed our lonely course, passing over the more open plain to the north of the town, where it is generally. supposed that the defeat of Darius took place. The Persian monarch had entered Cilicia by the northern or Amanic pass,

which here debouches into the plain on the sea-shore; a movement whereby Alexander, who had advanced as far as the Beilán pass, found himself dangerously hemmed in, and was compelled to return and attack his enemy, who, on being defeated, fled into the interior of Asia by the same pass through which he had advanced. Since leaving Beilán we had been

tracing the ground which had once witnessed the marching and countermarching of the Grecian army; and we were now passing over the scene of that momentous and hard-fought engagement, in which they routed, for the second time, the forces of the Persian monarch. The spot now is utterly abandoned, and traversed only by the Turcoman shepherd, inspiring a feeling of deeper depression than even the desert itself, inasmuch as it

bears traces of the former presence of a considerable population. The insecurity of the route was notorious, until the recent conquest of the whole country by Ibrahim Pasha.

After surveying the battle-field, and crossing the stream supposed to be the Pinarus, we reached the extreme north-east angle of the Mediterranean, and shortly after came upon a portion of the ancient Roman paved way, resembling the Appian, across which stood a picturesque old archway, called the Black Gate, which, in connexion with some adjacent walls, closed up the passage into another narrow valley through which the road passes, and all the defensible points of which had evidently been carefully fortified.

We passed the night under a solitary tree, in the midst of a caravan, which had halted for a few hours. Long before daylight it was on its road towards Syria, while we pursued our way through the plains of Cilicia, with Mount Taurus in the distance, covered with eternal snow. Leaving Messis, we reached Adana at noon, passing over the long bridge of nineteen arches, which bestrides the river Sihoon. Here we found the advanced guard of the Egyptian army, and reached the limits of the country subject to the power of Ibrahim Pasha, without having met with a single instance of annoyance (my spy adventure alone excepted) during our passage through the whole widelyextended tract.

At noon next day, in the midst of a luxuriant plain, the minarets of the Turkish town of Tersoos, rising from amidst a grove of trees, backed by the lofty snow-covered crests of Mount Taurus, showed that we were approaching the birth-place of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, whose footsteps we had been already following from Antioch. On entering the town, it became a serious question how we were to dispose of ourselves. Mr. Barker had kindly furnished us with a letter to the English Consul, then recently appointed; but that functionary had not yet reached the place. A miserable khan seemed to be our only

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refuge, when we were relieved from embarrassment by the entrance of a servant, bearing from the French Consul a pressing invitation to take up our abode at his house,

M. Gillet, our worthy entertainer, of a good family in France, had been thrice drawn for the conscription during the campaigns of Napoleon. The first, and even the second time, his parents had bought him off, on the third he was compelled to serve. He had gone through the horrors of the Russian campaign, and had beheld the terrible scene at the bridge over the Beresina. While so many had left their bones amidst the snows of Russia, and others had become mere wrecks of their former selves, he had come off, apparently, with an unbroken constitution, and his cheeks were as florid, his face as unwrinkled, and his vivacity as unflagging, as if he had never quitted the banks of the Seine. He seemed to bear a charmed life. Shut up in a melancholy town in a remote corner of Syria, hardly ever sought out by the foot of a traveller, exposed to a deleterious climate, which had proved fatal to two or three of his consular brethren, he has contrived to outlive them all, and has been since translated to the more important station of Salonica.

Speaking of the unhealthy climate, I remember, some time afterwards, meeting at dinner in Smyrna a gentleman who told me he had just received the appointment of English Consul at Tarsus, and who asked me what kind of place it was. I immediately informed him that its climate bore an unfavourable reputation. "Ah!" he rejoined, "if that is all, I am already well aware of it. The last consul died of fever; but I am perfectly acclimatée, and do not entertain the slightest apprehension." He repaired thither, and within a twelvemonth afterwards, laid his bones with those of his predecessor in office.

It has been said that John Bull carries his country with him wherever he goes; and perhaps the same may be said, with at least equal truth, of Jean Crapaud. In M. Gillet's house, until one looked out of the windows, and saw the snowy crags of the