l-Kamar, and, accompanied by his informant and a
troop of horsemen furnished by the Emir, hastened to the
spot of the alleged mysterious burial, when to his
horror, on opening the newly made grave, he discovered
it to contain the corpse of his youngest daughter!
Frantic at this sight, he desired instant admission, in
order to ascertain the safety of her sister. On this
being refused, the gates were forced open, and the
unfortunate girl was found closely confined in a
dungeon, on the point of death, but retaining still
strength enough to disclose horrors which led to an
investigation, implicating the patriarch, the abbess,
and several priests. This transaction, which happened in
1776, was submitted for the decision of the Papal See;
when it appeared that the pretended prophetess had, by
means of many ingenious mechanical devices, thus long
imposed on public credulity, whilst in the retirement of
the cloister the most licentious and profligate
occurrences nightly took place; and that when any
unfortunate nun gave offence, either by refusing to be
sacrificed at the shrine of infamy, or that it became
desirable to get rid of her, in order to appropriate for
the convent the amount of her property, she was immured
in a dungeon, left to perish by a lingering and
miserable death, and then privately buried in the night.
In consequence of these shocking discoveries, the
patriarch was deposed--the priests, his accomplices,
were severely punished, and the high priestess of this
temple of cruelty and debauchery was immured in
confinement, and survived for many years to repent of
all the atrocities she had previously committed."

We should like to know the colonel's authority for this circumstantial
account. It bears at present a startling resemblance to the confession
of Maria Monk, and the villanies recorded of the nunnery at Montreal;
and we will hope in the mean time, that the devil, even in the shape
of a lady abbess, is not quite so black as he is painted. The present
abbess of El Kourket is already as black as need be, for we are told
she is an Ethiopian negress.

The war carried on in Syria after the decisive battle of Boharsef,
seems to have been on the model of those recorded by Major Sturgeon,
and to have consisted of marching and counter-marching, without any
definite object, except, perhaps, the s