from the moment of his introduction into our company until he quits us to carry on his pious and noiseless labours at Aleppo, diversified only by friendly dinners and rural promenades or hunting, we view his character with unmingled satisfaction. He was a learned, cheerful, able, conscientious man, who viewed with a pleasure which he has not sought either to exaggerate or disguise the spots rendered venerable by the footsteps or sufferings of Christ, and of the prophets, martyrs, and apostles.
Maundrell and his companions departed from Aleppo on the 26th of February, 1696, and crossing the plains of Kefteen, which are fruitful, well cultivated, and of immense extent, arriving in two days at Shogr, a large but dirty town on the banks of the Orontes, where there was a splendid khan erected by the celebrated Grand Vizier Kuperli, on the next day they entered the pashalic of Tripoli; travelling through a woody, mountainous country, beneath the shade of overarching trees, amused by the roar of torrents, or by the sight of valleys whose green turf was sprinkled with myrtles, oleanders, tulips, anemonies, and various other aromatic plants and flowers. In traversing a low valley they passed over a stream rolling through a narrow rocky channel ninety feet deep, which was called the Sheïkh's Wife, an Arab princess having formerly perished in this dismal chasm.
Crossing Gebel Occaby, or the "Mountain of Difficulty," which, according to our traveller, fully deserves its name, they arrived towards evening at Belulca, a village famous for its wretchedness, and for the extremely humble condition to which Christianity is there reduced,—Christ being, to use his own expressive words, once more laid in a manger in that place. The poorness of their entertainment urged them to quit Belulca as quickly as possible, though the weather, which during the preceding day had been extremely bad, was still far from being settled;
