3Ir. BiickingJiavi^ s Address. 



ports of Berytus, Byblus, Tiipolis, and Laodicea, with the great interior cities of Anti- 

 och on the verdant banlis of the Orontes, Aleppo on the plains, and the enchanting 

 city of Damascus, whose loveliness has been the theme of universal admiration, from 

 the days of Abraham and Ehezer to those of Naaman the Syrian, and the great Apos- 

 tle of the Gentiles, and from thence to the present hour: while the great Temple of the 

 Sun at Baalbeck, the splendid ruins of Palmyra, the gorge us monuments of ancient 

 splendor in the Roman settlements of Decapolis, and the still earlier dominions of those 

 who reigned before either Greek or Roman in Bashan and Gilead, and the regions be- 

 yond Jordan, added splendor to beauty, and combined all that the traveller or antiquary 

 could desire. 



Mesopotamia, including ihe ancient empires of Chaldea, Assyria, and Babylonia, into 

 which I passed from Palestine, largely rewarded my researches. In the former, the 

 celebrated city of Ur of the Chaldees received me within its gates, and I passed many 

 days in this ancient birth-place and abode of the patriarch Abraham. The extensive 

 ruins of Nineveh, spread in silent desolation along the banks of the Tigris, and the 

 fallen Babylon, stretching its solitary heaps on either side of the great river Euphrates, 

 were also objects of patient and careful examination ; as well as the Oriental capital of 

 the Caliphs, Bagdad the renowned; and the remains of the great Tower of Babel, on 

 the plain of Shinar, of which a considerable portion still exists to attest the arrogance 

 and folly of its builders. 



Media and Persia came next in the order of my wanderings; and there, also, the 

 ruins of the ancient Ecbatana, the tomb of Cyrus at Pasagarda, and the splendid 

 remains of the great temple at Persepolis, gratified in a high degree the monumental 

 and antiquarian taste ; while the populous cities of Kermanshah, Ispahan, and Shiraz, 

 with the lovely valleys of Persian landscape, amply fed my love of the beautiful and the 

 picturesque. 



In India, as the field was more extended, and the time devoted longer by several 

 years, far more was seen, experienced, and felt. It may suffice, however, to say, that 

 all the outlines of that magnificent 'Empire of the Sun,' from the Red Sea and the 

 Persian Gulf on the west, to the Bay of Bengal on the east, were traced by my voy- 

 ages along its shores; for after navigating, and accurately surveying both the seas named, 

 from Suez to Bab-el-mandeb in the one, and from the mouth of the Euphrates to the 

 port of Muscat in the other, I visited Bombay, and all the ports upon the coast of Mala- 

 bar; from thence to Colombo and Point de Galle in the Island of Ceylon ; afterwards 

 anchored at Madras, and entered the ports of Binilipatam and Vizagapatam, on the 

 coast of Coromandel and Orissa, in the region of the Idol temple of Juggernaut ; and 

 ultimately reached the British capital of India, Calcutta, on the banks of the Ganges. 



It may readily be conceived that in so extensive and varied a track as this, the per- 

 sonal adventures I experienced were as varied as they were numerous; and I may 

 assert, with confidence, that while privation and suffering had been endured by me in 

 almost every form — in hunger, thirst, nakedness, imprisonment, shipwreck, battle, and 

 disease — so also, every pomp and pleasure that man could enjoy, from honors bestow- 

 ed, and hospitalities received, agreeably relieved the tedium of my way; so that 

 although my course was not invariably on a bed of roses, neither was it always across 

 a path of thorns. 



Amid all these changes, however, there was one thing which, in me at least, remained 

 happily the same. No length of travel, no amount of suffering, no blandishments of 

 pleasure, no intimidations of tyranny, no debihtation of climate, no variety of institu- 

 tions, had been sufficient to abate in me, in the slightest degree, that ardor of attachment 



