In 181/ and 1818. 1 163
so great an impression on me the preceding evening: I was
told that these unfortunate youths, who were brilliantly armed,
and mounted on superb horses, were the favourites of the aga,
whose treasures and power they contested.

At the epoch of the campaign of Egypt, the French did not
obtain possession of Gaza until after a pretty severe action.
The French engineers then threw up a redoubt capable of
keeping the city in check; and the remains of this work I saw,
but in a very ruinous condition.

If I had been alone, and could have submitted to pay the
enormous sum which was demanded of me, 1 should certainly
have confided my destiny to the Arabs of Bakyr, and to a few
known individuals of Gaza, to seek in the Desert, to the south-
east of lake Asphaltites, the ruins of the cities of the Naba-
theans and the Idunieans. The Honourable Mr. Banks, an
English Traveller, was at the time on the eve of visiting that
particular part of Asia, hitherto so little known: I was told
that he was to be furnished with an escort of three hundred
men for this expedition. He will see without doubt the De-
sert of el-Tyh, to which Moses led the Hebrews; together
with Pharan, and the remains of Asion-Gaber and Aylah,
which were, even in the time of Solomon, the entrepot of the
commerce of Arabia and Iiulia.

The Greek at whose house I was lodged spoke a little Ita-
lian: he was affectedly grave, and gave himself airs of import-
ance, because the aga did not undertake any thing without con-
sulting him. I have never, even among the other secretaries
and drogomans, met with an indolence which could be com-
pared to that of this man. I do not know how the affairs of
the government Avere managed; hut I saw him incessantly
with a pipe in his mouth, and twirling between his fingers a
chaplet of amber.

It is impossible to conceive the perplexities and torments of
an unfortunate traveller who is obliged to consume whole
days in waiting for a Imiyovrdik* The agas, the emirs, the
interpreters, and the camel-drivers, all conspire to keep him in
a state of suspense; and it is by the dint of money alone that
he succeeds in obtaining what might be had without the least
difficulty.

The sums which Syria had at this time to pay annually to
the kliazneh, the sultan's treasurer, were estimated at three
thousand purses, somewhat more than one hundred and thirty
thousand pounds sterling. Aleppo, Tripoli, and Saint-Jean-

* A sort of permit, or passport.