RAIMA. 431 
we had anywhere encountered since we landed chap. 
at Acre. The town is situate in the middle 
of an extensive and fertile plain, which is a part 
of the great Field of Sharon, if we may bestow 
upon any particular region a name which was 
applied to more than one district of the Holy 
Land*. It makes a considerable figure at a 
distance ; but we found nothing within the 
place, except traces of devastation and death. 
It exhibited one scene of ruin. Houses fallen 
or deserted appeared on every side; and in- 
stead of inhabitants, we beheld only the skele- 
tons or putrifying carcases of horses and 
camels. These were lying in all the streets, 
and even in the courts and chambers of the 
buildings belonging to the place. A plague, or 
rather a murrain, during the preceding year, 
had committed such ravages, that not only 
men, women, and children, but cattle of all 
kinds, and every thing that had life, became its 
victims. Few of the inhabitants of Europe can 
have been aware of the state of sufferino; to 
which all the coast of Palestine and Syria was 
(4) Eusehius and Jerom affirm, that all the maritime district from 
Joppaio Ceesarea was called Saron ; and also, that the country between 
Mount Thabor and the Lake of Tiberias had the same name. Vid. 
Hieronym. de Loc. Hebraic. Lilt. S. See also Doubdan Voy. de la T. S. 
p. 510. Paris, 1657. 
