; here
the water gushed from a stone fountain and flowed into a turf-girdled
pool, around which the Syrian women were washing their garments; there, a
garden of orange, lemon, fig, and pomegranate trees in blossom, was a
spring of sweet odors, which overflowed the whole land. We rode into some
of these forests, for they were no less, and finally pitched our tent in
one of them, belonging to the palace of the former Abdallah Pasha, within
a mile of Acre. The old Saracen aqueduct, which still conveys water to
the town, overhung our tent. For an hour before reaching our destination,
we had seen it on the left, crossing the hollows on light stone arches. In
one place I counted fifty-eight, and in another one hundred and three of
these arches, some of which were fifty feet high. Our camp was a charming
place: a nest of deep herbage, under two enormous fig-trees, and
surrounded by a balmy grove of orange and citron. It was doubly beautiful
when the long line of the aqueduct was lit up by the moon, and the orange
trees became mounds of ambrosial darkness.

In the morning we rode to Acre, the fortifications of which have been
restored on the land-side. A ponderous double gateway of stone admitted us
into the city, through what was once, apparently, the court-yard of a
fortress. The streets of the town are narrow, terribly rough, and very
dirty, but the bazaars are extensive and well stocked. The principal
mosque, whose heavy dome is visible at some distance from the city, is
surrounded with a garden, enclosed by a pillared corridor, paved with
marble. All the houses of the city are built in the most massive style, of
hard gray limestone or marble, and this circumstance alone prevented their
complete destruction during the English bombardment in 1841. The marks of
the shells are everywhere seen, and the upper parts of the lofty buildings
are completely riddled with cannon-balls, some of which remain embedded in
the stone. We made a rapid tour of the town on horseback, followed by the
curious glances of the people, who were in doubt whether to consider us
Turks or Franks. There were a dozen vessels in the harbor, which is
considered the best in Syria.

The baggage-mules had gone on, so we galloped after them along the hard
beach, around the head of the bay. It was a brilliant morning; a
delicious south-eastern breeze came to us over the flowery plain of
Esdraelon; the sea on our right shone blue, and purple, and violet-green,
an