Syria; the women have blue
gowns, and the men, white blouses, wide trousers, and a sash:
sometimes the women wear spencers, and the more wealthy among them
even display caftans and turbans. The head-dress of the women is
very original, but does not look remarkably becoming. They wear on
their foreheads a tin horn more than a foot in length, and over this
a white handkerchief, fastened at the back and hanging down in
folds. This rule, however, only applies to the wealthier portion of
the community, which is here limited enough. The poorer women wear
a much smaller horn, over which they display an exceedingly dingy
handkerchief. During working hours they ordinarily divest
themselves of these ornaments, as they would render it impossible to
carry loads on the head. The rich inhabitants of the mountains,
both male and female, dress in the Oriental fashion; but the women
still retain the horn, which is then made of silver.

The village of Maschdalanscher is built of clay huts thatched with
straw. I saw many goats and horned cattle, and a good store of corn
lay piled up before the doors.

We were assured that the roads through the mountains inhabited by
the Druses and Maronites were very unsafe, and we were strongly
urged to take an escort with us; but as we met caravans almost every
hour, we considered this an unnecessary precaution, and arrived
safely without adventure of any kind at Damascus.

July 3d.

This morning we rode at first over a very good road, till at length
we came upon a ravine, which seemed hardly to afford us room to
pass. Closer and more closely yet did the rocky masses approach
each other, as we passed amongst the loose shingle over the dry bed
of a river. Frequently the space hardly admitted of our stepping
aside to allow the caravans we met to pass us. Sometimes we
thought, after having painfully laboured through a ravine of this
kind, that we should emerge into the open field; but each time it
was only to enter a wilder and more desert pass. So we proceeded
for some hours, till the rocky masses changed to heaps of sand, and
every trace of vegetation disappeared. At length we had climbed the
last hill, and Damascus, "the vaunted city of the East," lay before
us.

It is certainly a striking sight when, escaping from the
inhospitable domains of the mountain and the sandhill, we see
stretched at our feet a great and luxuriant valley, forming in the
freshness of its vegetation a singular