wild ravines, precipices, and chasms; when, his pious curiosity being gratified, he visited Ælau or Ailoth, the modern Akaba, and returned by Suez to Cairo. Among the very extraordinary things he beheld in this country were a man and woman upwards of eight feet in height, natives of Upper Egypt, whom he measured himself: and tortoises as large as the body of a carriage!
His stay in Egypt was not of long continuance, the longing to visit the Holy Land causing him to regard every other country with a kind of disdain; and accordingly, joining a small caravan which was proceeding thither across the desert, he journeyed by El Arish and Gaza to Jerusalem. After witnessing the various mummeries practised in the Holy City at Easter by the Roman Catholics, and making an excursion to the banks of the Jordan, where he saw a number of female pilgrims plunging naked into the sacred stream in the view of an immense multitude, he bent his steps towards Northern Syria, and hurried forward by the way of Damascus to Aleppo. In this city he remained some time, his body requiring some repose, though the ardour and activity of his mind appeared to be every day increasing. The journey which he now meditated across the Arabian Desert into Mesopotamia required considerable preparation. The mode of travelling was new. Horses were to be exchanged for camels; the European dress for that of the East; and instead of the sun, the stars and the moon were to light them over the waste.
He was now unconsciously touching upon the most important point of his career. In the caravan with which he departed from Aleppo, September 16, 1616, there was a young merchant of Bagdad, with whom, during the journey, he formed a close intimacy. This young man was constantly in the habit of entertaining him, as they rode along side by side through the moonlight, or when they sat down
