INTRODUCTI ON. iv 



cafes toprefs for particular information; an Arab conductor., 

 who proceeds with caution, furely means you well. He 

 told me that he would leave a friend in the houfe of a cer- 

 tain Arab at Hamath * about half-way to Palmyra, and if 

 in fomething more than a month 1 came there, and found 

 that Arab, I might rely upon him without fear, and he 

 would conduct me in fafety to Palmyra. 



I returned to Tripoli, and at the time appointed fet out 

 for Hamath, found my conductor, and proceeded to HaiTia. 

 Coming from Aleppo, I had not palled the lower way again, 

 by Antioch. The river which panes through the plains 

 where they cultivate their beft tobacco, is the Orontes ; it was 

 fo fwollen with rain, which had fallen in the mountains,, 

 that the ford was no longer viable. Stopping at two mifer- 

 able huts inhabited by a bafe fet called Turcomans, I alked 

 the mafter of one of them to fhew me the ford, which he 

 very readily undertook to do, and I went, for the length of 

 fome yards, on rough, but very hard and folid ground. The 

 current before me was, however, fo violent, that 1 had more 

 than once a defire to turn back, but, not fufpecting any 

 thing, I continued, when on a fudden man and horfe fell, 

 out of their depth into the river. 



I had a rifled gun flung acrofs my moulder, with a buff 

 belt and fwivel. As long as that held, it fo embarraffed ray 

 hands and legs that I could not fwim, and muft have funk ; 

 but luckily the fwivel gave way, the gun fell to the bottom 

 of the river, and was pickt up in dry weather by order of 



the 



The north boundary of the Holy Land. 



