* * * * *

THE NOVELIST.

NIGHT IN A TURKISH CEMETERY.

The scenery round Aleppo is varied and beautiful, and contains some of the
richest objects, peculiar to a land of eastern romance. When the sunset
extends its purple flush around the hills, and the city is gladdened by
the sound of silver bells, announcing the return of some Turkish caravan,
a landscape of more extraordinary magnificence never entranced the
imagination of the traveller! At the brow of the sunny hill, on which the
peaks of Aleppo glance in the stainless azure of heaven, are suspended
bowers of rose and cypress trees, through whose fragrant solitudes the
streamlet murmurs its liquid song; and the picturesque situation of the
scattered vales is so admirably calculated to inspire the musings of a
contemplative mind, that Fancy might there embody her dreams and
phantasies without the fear of receiving intrusion from the world. The
scenes are decidedly distinguished by such attractive beauty, that I am
disposed to think with the poet--

Methinks amid such scenes as this,
Must _they_ have dwelt--the bards of old,
Whose numbers, of Arcadian bliss,
And Tempe's beauteous vale, have told.[10]

Many an exquisite story has been embalmed in the spirit of song, or
invested with the pleasing garb of tradition, while the lighter incidents
of life have faded into oblivion without a tongue to record them. One of
these, selected from the many which my heart has kept sacred among the dim
recollections of the past, sustains the interest of my present sketch; and
a more amusing recital I have never _yet_ transmitted to the pages of _The
Mirror_.

It was a night of deep and tranquil loveliness--a night that seldom fails
to soften the excitement produced by the feverish pursuits of day. The
vivid glow of an eastern sunset quivered on the mountains, and the clouds
that displayed their crystal forms in its western glory, seemed coloured
with a tint of the richest crimson. In the azure vault above, emblazoned in
the spirit of Byron's splendid, intellectual coruscation, with--

Hues that have words and speak to ye of heaven,

thousands of silver orbs sparkled and gleamed like fairy lamps of fire;
and the bowers, in which the "Sultana of the Nightingale" inspired a song
from her minstrel lover, assumed the dream-like repose which pervaded the
surrounding scenes, and extended its influence to the city of Aleppo.

At thi