to raise it. Their faces, hands, and arms, are
tattooed, and covered with hideous scars; their
eye-lashes and eyes being always painted, or
rather dirted, with some dingy black or blue
powder. Their lips are dyed
are dyed of a deep and
dusky blue, as if they had been eating black-
berries. Their teeth are jet black; their nails
and fingers brick red; their wrists, as well as
their ankles, are laden with large metal cinctures,
studded with sharp pyramidal knobs and bits
of glass. Very ponderous rings are also placed
in their ears; so that altogether it might be
imagined some evil dæmon had employed the
whole of his ingenuity to maim and to disfigure
the loveliest work of the creation. In viewing
these women, we may form some notion of the
object beheld by the Chevalier D'Arvieux',
when Hyche, wife of Hassan the Majorcan slave,
for the first time condescended to unveil herself
before him: only there was this difference to
heighten the effect of such a disclosure, that
Hyche, with all the characteristic decorations of
an Arabian female, was moreover a negress.

CHAP.

IV.

(1) See the very interesting Travels of the Chevalier D'Arvieux, as written by M. de la Roque, and published at Paris in 1717. D'Arvieux was made French Consul in Syria in 1682. His account of the Arabs exhibits a faithful picture of their manners, and bears the strongest internal evidence of truth. The particular circumstance to which allusion is here made is related in the 26th page of the edition cited.

CHAP.

IV.

About half way between Sephoury and Nazareth, as we ascended a hill, two very singular figures met us on horseback, exciting no inconsiderable mirth among the English members of our caravan, in spite of all their endeavours to suppress it. These were, the worthy Superiors of the Franciscan Monastery in Nazareth; two meagre little men, in long black cassocks, having hats upon their heads of the size of an ordinary umbrella. It is impossible to give an idea of the ludicrous appearance they made, sitting beneath these enormous hats, with their knees quite up to their chins, as they descended the hill towards us. They had been informed of our approach by a party of Arabs, who had proceeded, by a different road, with our camels of burden; and were therefore kindly coming to meet us. Alarm of They soon converted our mirth to gravity, by the Plague. informing us that the plague raged, with considerable fury, both in their convent, and in the town; but as the principal danger was said to be in the convent, our curiosity superseded all apprehension, and we resolved to pass the night in one of the houses of the place. These monks informed us, that we might safely venture, provided we were cautious in avoiding contact with suspected

persons we therefore began, by keeping them
at such a distance as
as might prevent any
communication of the disorder from their
persons. The younger of the two, perceiving
this, observed, that when we had been longer
in the country, we should lay aside our fears,
and perhaps fall into the opposite extreme,
by becoming too indifferent as to the chance
of contagion.
They said they visited the
sick from the moment of their being attacked;
received them into their convent; and admi-
nistered to their necessities; always carefully
abstaining from the touch of their diseased
patients'. The force of imagination is said
to have great influence, either in avoiding or
in contracting this disorder; those who give
way to any great degree of alarm being the
most liable to its attack; while predestinarian
Moslems, armed with a powerful faith that
nothing can accelerate or retard the fixed
decrees of Providence, pass unhurt through
the midst of contagion 2. Certainly, the

CHAP.

IV.

(1) We afterwards found a very different line of conduct observed by the Monks of the Holy Sepulchre, who refused, and doubtless with very good reason, to admit any of our party after a visit to Bethlehem, where the plague was vehement.

(2) The author knew a Moslem of high rank, who, when his wife was attacked by the plague, attended her with impunity, until she died. He

VOL. IV.

M

would

IV.

CHAP. danger is not so great as it is generally believed to be. The rumour prevalent in the neighbourhood of Asiatic towns, where the plague exists, of the number carried off by the disorder, is always false; and this gaining strength as it proceeds to any distance, causes the accounts which are published in the gazettes of Europe, of whole cities being thereby depopulated. The towns of the HOLY LAND are, it is true, often emptied of their inhabitants, who retire into tents in the environs when the plague is rife; but they quickly return again to their habitations, when the alarm subsides. A traveller in these countries will do well to be mindful of this; because, were he to halt or to turn back upon the event of every rumour of this nature, he would soon find his journey to be altogether impracticable. We had reason to regret that we were thus prevented from visiting Baffa in the Isle of Cyprus. In a subsequent part of our travels

would not suffer any of his slaves to approach her person; but gave her food and medicines with his own hands; and, in the hour of death impressed a parting kiss upon her lips, as he wept over her. In a similar state of indifference as to the consequences of his temerity, the celebrated Dr. White, physician to our army and navy, when in Egypt, resided in the Plague Hospital at Grand Caïro, and escaped, until he actually inoculated himself with the purulent virus of the disorder.

IV.

we were often liable to exaggerated reports CHAP.
concerning the plague. They are something
like the stories of banditti in many European
mountains, inhabited by a race of shepherds
as harmless as the flocks they tend.
The case

is certainly somewhat different in Asia, espe-
cially in the Holy Land, where banditti are
no insubstantial phantoms that vanish when-
ever they are approached.
The traveller
in this country must pass "the tents of
Kedar, and the hills of the robbers." So it is
with regard to the plague; he will sometimes find
the reality, although it be inadequate to the

rumour.

We visited several places where the inhabitants were said to die by hundreds in a day; but not an individual of our party, which was often numerous, experienced in any degree the consequences of contagion. The French, owing to their extreme carelessness, were often attacked by it, and as often cured. The members of their medical staff, belonging to their army in Egypt, seemed to consider it as a malignant, and therefore dangerous fever; but by no means fatal, with proper precaution.

The rest of this short journey, like the preceding part of it, was over sterile limestone,