to offer me any money I may want. The latter I had no occasion to
accept, for when the Jew left the city who was to supply me, and the
man died who was to obtain it for me, and I seemed left without
remedy, an Armenian offered to supply whatever I might want, without
any application on my part, and from him I have had what I needed.

Whether or not the affairs of the Pasha are likely to be quietly
settled, I know not; but I think there are some indications that the
present Pasha will remain. So intensely ruined does the city appear,
that the Pasha of Aleppo, who was to have come and dispossessed him,
seems to have no desire for the exchange; and besides, the present
Pasha has offered so large a sum of money, that there appears little
doubt it will be accepted. Dispatches have arrived for him, the
contents of which are not yet known; but the Pasha says, he has
received the most satisfactory letters. He is, I believe, recovering
daily his strength.

Thus I finish this melancholy portion of my journal--one of those dark
pages in the history of one's life, that whenever the thoughts stray
towards it, chills to the very centre of one's being; and when we
trace all its sources, and see they terminate in sin, Oh! how hateful
must that thing be, which is fraught with such deadly consequences.
Oh! what a blessedness it is, amidst all these lights and shades of
life, to know that the Rock on which we rest is the same, and does not
vary; and that whether he administers to us the bitter portion or the
sweet, his banner over us is love.

* * *

_June 5._--Reports are again spreading that the Pasha of Aleppo is
within a few days of this place. But we sit down and patiently wait
the event.

_June 7._--To-day a letter has reached me from Major Taylor, being the
first I have received since he removed his family from this place to
Bussorah, on the breaking out of the plague here. In every one of the
boats going down the river deaths occurred, but especially in theirs,
they losing seven of their party. The plague broke out among the Arab
sailors, who secreted a corpse in the boat several days, and from
them it spread among his African servants, and seized Mrs. Taylor's
brother-in-law, so that I cannot see my early conclusions were wrong
as to not moving at that time. And, moreover, the Pasha, or rather
Motezellim of Bussorah, has been driven out by a party of Arabs, and
he is now come against the town with anothe