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Captains Irby and Mangles visited Balbec, and then returned to Tripoli, whence they started for Aleppo. They passed through Latachia, the ancient Laodicea, where there appear to be some interesting antiquities, and in the neighbourhood some sepulchral caves; but, as they have no paintings,' say our Travellers, we did not think it worth while to visit them.' A strange reason, were it not that they were fresh from Nubia. Here again we are provokingly referred to the romancing Frenchman for further information. The banks of the Orontes are described as far exceeding in beauty, the expectation of the Travellers.

"We now began to follow the banks of the river, and were astonished at the beauty of the scenery, far surpassing any thing we expected to see in Syria, and indeed, any thing we had witnessed even in Switzerland, though we walked nine hundred miles in that country, and saw most of its beauty. The river, from the time we began to trace its banks, ran continually between two high hills, winding and turning incessantly at times the road led along precipices in the rocks, looking down perpendicularly on the river. The luxuriant variety of foliage was prodigious, and the rich green myrtle, which was very plentiful, contrasted with the colour of the road, the soil of which was a dark red gravel, made us imagine we were riding through pleasure-grounds. The laurel, laurestinus, bay-tree, fig-tree, wild vine, plane-tree, English sycamore, arbutus, both common and andrachne, dwarf oak, &c. were scattered in all directions. At times the road was overhung with rocks covered with ivy; the mouths of caverns also presented themselves, and gave a wildness to the scene; and the perpendicular cliffs jutted into the river upwards of three hundred feet high, forming corners round which the waters ran in a most romantic manner. We descended at times into plains cultivated with mulberry plantations and vines, and prettily studded with picturesque cottages. The occasional shallows of the river keeping up a perpetual roaring, completed the beauty of this scene, which lasted about two hours, when we entered the plain of Suadeah (Seleucia,) where the river becomes of a greater breadth, and runs in as straight a line as a canal.' pp. 225, 6.

The Authors express their regret at not having been able to visit the ruins of the city and groves of Daphne, for want of a guide, which it was impossible to procure. Pococke says: The place called Battelma, about five miles south of Antioch, must have been Daphne, about which there are several fountains the palace of Daphne is placed, in the Jerusalem Itinerary, five miles from Antioch in the way to Latachia.' Battelma, our Travellers do not mention: they probably left it to their right, as Pococke mentions a road different from that which he took, which goes over the eastern side of Mount Cassius, and to the west of a village called Ordou, and soon

after joins the other road. If Pococke's Ordou be Captain M.'s Lourdee, (no violent conjecture,) this must have been their route. At Aleppo, they found Mr. Bankes, then on his way to re visit Nubia. He paid our Travellers the compliment to say, he wished they might travel together, as he heard we were the only travellers he had met with, who go after is method.' What this method is, we regret that our Authors have not thought proper to explain. They had entertained an idea of visiting Bagdad and Babylon, as had Mr. Bankes; but a letter shewn them by the Dutch consul, assured them that there is nothing whatever to be seen' there, and, strange to say, on this assurance, they contentedly gave up the plan. There are not paintings, or temples, or pyramids, assuredly; yet, we should have imagined that Mr. Bankes might have found work there, and that the banks of the Tigris had been worth seeing.

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At Hamah, they witnessed a melancholy scene, a specimen of the Turkish slave-trade. Eleven Georgian girls, the remnant of between forty and fifty who had been kidnapped, were brought in to be sold to such wealthy Turks as could afford to bid high enough. They were mostly between fifteen and twenty years of age; two were about twelve; all exceedingly pretty, with black sparkling eyes, rosy cheeks, long black hair, and very fair complexion, giving a very strong contradiction to what Volney writes of the Georgian and Circassian women.' One of these poor girls had no lower a price put upon her than £252. They were all taken out four different times, and conducted through the town to the rich Turkish houses, to be viewed and bid for, the same as any other mer'chandise.' In this manner, they had been exposed for sale at all the principal towns as they came along; they had been conducted on horseback, but their diet was of a piece with their brutal treatment in other respects. They were now destined for Damascus.

Palmyra, our Travellers represent as much less worth seeing than Balbec, and altogether hardly worthy of the time, ex'pense, anxiety, and fatiguing journey through the wilderness,' they had incurred in order to visit it. The plates of Wood and Dawkins, they complain, have done but too much justice to the originals.'

Great was our disappointment, when, on a minute examination, we found that there was not a single column, pediment, architrave, portal, frieze, or any architectural remnant worthy of admiration. None of the columns exceeded in diameter four feet, or in height forty feet. Taken as a tout ensemble, these ruins are certainly more remarkable, by reason of their extent, (being nearly a mile and a

half in length,) than any we have witnessed ; and, exclusive of the Arab village of Tadmor, which occupies the peristyle court of the Temple of the Sun, and the Turkish burying-place, there are no obstructions whatever to the antiquities. Take any part of the ruins separately, and they excite but little interest.' p. 270.

The tombs, however, were found very interesting, and differed in their construction from any thing they had seen, consisting of a number of square towers, three, four, and five stories high.

• There are generally five sepulchral chambers one over the other, and on each side are eight recesses, each divided into four or five parts for the reception of corpses; the lower chamber, in some instances, fronts an excavation in the side of the hill contiguous to it. The best of these lower apartments which we saw are very handsome, the sides being ornamented with sculpture and fluted Corinthian pilasters, though the walls were plain white stucco, without any figures or emblematical representation. The cieling, on which the paint is still very perfect, is ornamented, like that of the peristyle court of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbec, with the heads of different heathen deities, and disposed in diamond-shaped divisions. We were much interested by the remains of some of the mummies and mummy cloths, which appear to have been preserved very much after the manner of the Egyptians, only that the gum had lost all that odour, resembling frankincense, which we noticed in Egypt. We found a hand in tolerable preservation. But after all, you must not imagine that these sepulchres are in any way so interesting as those of Egypt. You bere look in vain for those beautiful paintings, &c. which so well portray the manners and customs of the ancients. We observed the marble folding doors, still erect, of some of the grander tonibs situated in the town ; these latter are much dilapidated : the doors were carved in pannels, but ill executed and unpolished.-We agree with Mr. Bankes, that many of the small square rows of columns which Wood and Dawkins suppose to have inclosed temples, were no other than the open court of private edifices which inclosed fountains.'

pp. 271, 2. For an account of Damascus, we are briefly referred to Maundrell ; a good example for travellers who have really nothing new to tell us. From Damascus, Captains Irby and Mangles proceeded to Jerusalem.

At Om Keis (or Oom Kais), by Mr. Buckingham supposed to be Gamala, but by Mr. Bankes, as well as by Seetzen, concluded to be Gadara,* the party were kindly received by the

*

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• In an article written against Mr. Buckingham in the Quarterly Review, No. lii., his reasons for supposing Domkais to be Gamala, are treated with haughty contempt; the Reviewer attributing them

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Shiekh of the natives, who inhabit the ancient sepulchres. tomb we lodged in,' says Capt. M., was capable of containing between twenty and thirty people: it was of an oblong form; and the cattle, &c. occupied one end, while the proprietor and his family lodged in the other.' In exploring the ruins of the ancient Scythopolis, (Bisan, Bethsan,) they found several sculls in a concealed vomitory of the theatre, in one of which a viper was basking, with his body twisted between the eyes.' In a plain to the west of the ruined modern village of Tabathat Fahkil,' they noticed the ruins of a square building, with a semi-circular end, which appears to have been surrounded with columns; and on the East and South sides of the hill are considerable ruins of some ancient city of great extent.

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The situation is beautiful, being on the side of a ravine, with a picturesque stream running at the bottom. As this place appears to be as ancient as the ruins of Scythopolis, and full two thirds of its size, it appears unaccountable that history should not mention a place so near the principal city of the Decapolis" (Gadara) as this is. We searched for inscriptions, but in vain. The ruins of a fine temple are situated near the water side, and among the columns are discovered the three orders of architecture, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The river passing to the South, finally communicates with the Jordan.' p. 304.

to obliquity of intellect,' and suppressing Mr. B.'s arguments. D'Anville, following Pliny, places Gadara on the Hieromax, and says that it is now called Kedar. From Capt. Mangles's account, the site in question is at some distance from the plain of the Yarmack, and between Om Keis and Kedar there seems no traceable resemblance. He notices a small ancient site' on the banks of the river, but says: It contains nothing of interest: the map marks it Amatha. That Oom Kais is in "the country of the Gadarenes," there is no question. Mr. Buckingham notices the circumstance, though the Reviewer represents him as ignorant of the fact. In the opinion, that it is the site of Gamala, Mr. B. is not singular. Burckhardt says, 'I am doubtful to what ancient city the ruins of Om Keis are to be ascribed.' On which his Editor has this note: It was probably Gamala, which Josephus describes as standing upon a mountain bordered by precipices.' Pliny and Jerome are both cited as authorities for the different position of Gadara. The former says: Gadara Hieromiace præterfluente. Jerome describes it as urbs trans Jordanem contra Scythopolin et Tiberiadem ad orientalem plagam, sita in monte ad cujus radices aqua calidæ erumpunt, balneis super ædificatis. El Hossn, Mr. Bankes's Gamala, Burkhardt conjectures to be the remains of Regaba or Argob.' Amatha is supposed to have been Szalt. May not Gadara be, after all, the ancient site' on the Yarmack?

Some excavations in the side of the hills at a short distance are supposed to be the necropolis of the city. It is a singular omission on the part of the Writer, that the name of the stream is not mentioned : possibly they were not able to ascertain it. It seems to correspond to the WVady Yabes of Burckhardt, in which we seem to have a nearer approach to the Jabbok of Scripture, than in Yarmack (Jarmouk) or in Zerka. We know not on what authority the Zerka is usually identified with the Jabbok : that the Hieromax may be the Jabbok, is merely a conjecture of Pococke's. It is now called Sheriat el Mandhour. Burckhardt mentions ruins at Beit el Ras, which he was told were of large extent, but did not visit, an hour and a half out of the road between Erbad and Om Keis; and one hour and a half to the N. E. of Hebras, are the ruins of the ancient Abila, one of the towns of the Decapolis. Neither of these places appears to answer to the situation of the city described by Captain Mangles. If the stream they mention be the Yabes, and our etymological conjecture be admissible, we should be tempted to believe, that the nameless city they discovered, was no other than Pella itself, which D'Anville places on the Jabbok.

Djerash, supposed to be Geraza, our Travellers hold to be a much finer mass of ruins than Palmyra. It has been built on two sides of a valley, with a fine stream running through it. It is so fully described by Burckhardt, that we shall not stop to notice the remarks of our Authors. Its position does not at all agree with that given to Gerasa by D'Anville from the ancient authorities, who places it to the N. E. of the lake of Tiberias, forty miles to the N. W. of this site. But the modern name is considered as sufficient to identify it; although Capt. Mangles says, nothing but the similarity of names ' would lead one to suppose that the ruins at Djerash are Ge• rasa.' Where the modern name answers to the old Hebrew name, the greatest stress, we think, may be laid on such resemblance; but the Roman names have been in so few instances adopted and preserved by the natives, (and in those instances, it has, for the most part been a new settlement that has retained its name, as at Cesarea, rather than a mere change of appellation) that we should be inclined to consider a coincidence between the Arabic and the classical names, 'unsup. ported by authorities, as merely accidental. If the Essa of Josephus be Gerasa, it would be difficult to reconcile its ancient with its modern appellation. It is quite evident, that any decision would be at present quite premature, with regard to the real situation of the ancient cities of the Decapolis. Szalt, which has been thought to be the ancient Amathus,

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