eight or tea miles of our journey was over a more pleasing 
tract of country; but all the rest afforded the most fatiguing 
and difficult route* we had any where encountered, since we 
landed at Acre. The town is situated in the middle of an 
extensive and fertile plain, which is' pact of the great field of 
Sharon, if we may bestow a name upon any particular region 
which was applied to more than one district of the Holy 
Land.f It makes a considerable figure at a distance; bat we 
found nothing within the place except traces of devastation and 
death. It exhibited one scene of ruin. Houses fallen or de¬ 
serted, appeared on every side; and instead of inhabitants we 
beheld only the skeletons or putrifyihg 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 murrain , during the preceding year, had 
committed such ravages, that not only men, women, and chil¬ 
dren, but cattle of all kinds, and every thing that had life, be¬ 
came its victims* Few of the 'inhabitants of Europe can have 
been aware of the state of suffering to which all the coast of 
Palestine and Syria was exposed. It followed, and in part 
accompanied, the dreadful ravages caused by the march of the 
French army: from, the accounts we received, it seeded-3$ if 
the "exterminating hand of Providence was exercised In sweep¬ 
ing from the earth every trace of animal existence. “ In Ka¬ 
ma;!; was there a voice heard,* lamentation, and weeping, and 
xal TtXiHov 5i6.crrrtu.a," iarlv^v ’Eppaas rrihs jieyttAn, xot\6.$os j-ifoov wfatvn, lv 
yrrfpavfcrrnjt^ri pctHiw, Stws wera fKi.a. (tnocri xal rieraapa n tS 'Pup,rrktct %wpa 
uCpwrKtiTCii xai vaos ir&wityas h ravrn op arm t2 Juyia jisyakoijApTupos Vtwpy'at % 
“ A sancta civitate Hierusalem, ad sex miiliaria, Anna!hem urbs eonspicitur, in qua 
Samuel, rnagnus iilepropheta, drturn habuit. Inde'postvalia septem et amp!ius mil- 
liana, Emmaus, urbs magna, in media valle siiperenamenti clorso jacet Sic ad pas- 
suum fere viginti rnillia, Rampleae (haec est Ramoia, sic leg. Reland.) regia effundi- 
tur: et templum ingens in eadem sancti magni martyris Georgii visitur. Fkocae. 
Descript. Loc. Sanct apud Leon. 4llat. Sujip. Colon. 1G53 
* It seems never to have been otherwise. There is not even a trace of any an¬ 
cient paved way, so common even in the remotest provinces of the Roman empire. 
at Excepta planitie Rama” says Quaresmius (Eluc. T S. tom. II. p. 12.) quaepulchra 
est. spatiosa etfecunda, octovcl decern mi! librium, tola residua difjicilis satis , et fere 
seiftp&r per monies et colles .” 1 et it appears to be recorded, (T Kings, v 9.) that the 
stones and timber for building Solomon’s Temple were brought upon rafts, by sea, to 
the port of Jaffa, and thence carried by land to Jerusalem. See also Quaresm. Eluc. 
T: S. tom. II. p. 5. Antv* 1639. 
f Eusebius and Jerom affirm, that all the maritime district from Joppa to Caesarea 
was called Saron; and also, that the country between Mount Thabor and the Lake of 
Tiberias had the same name. Vide. Eieronym., de Loc. Hebraic. Lilt. S. See also 
Dovbdan. Voy. de la T. S. p. 510. Paris , 1657. 
X This prophecy of Jeremiah (xxxi. 15 ) applied by Saint Matthew (ii. 17.) to the 
murder of the innocents by Herod, is not believed to refer to the place now mentioned# 
but to another. Rama , noticed by Eusebius. “ Meminit Eusebius Ram(eifz<?X:iiv Bu'iWcip, 
de qua dictum sit , (Matth. 2. 18. Jerem 31. 11.) Vox in Rama auhita est. Scd quutn 
vicum aut urbem earn non appellet , me■■ illiquid addat &c, (Rel. Palaest. tom. II. p„ 
$6'4r. UtreQpt, 1714-) Mama was a name common to many places in the Holy 
