Our way led onwards, for about six miles from Bscharai, through the beautiful valleys of the Lebanon.  Then the smiling nature changed, and we were again wandering through sterile regions.  The heat, too, became very oppressive; but every thing would have been borne cheerfully had there not been an invalid among us.

Herr Sattler had felt rather unwell on the previous day; to-day he grew so much worse that he could not keep his seat in his saddle, and fell to the ground half insensible.  Luckily we found a cistern not far off, and near it some trees, beneath which we made a bed of cloaks for our sick friend.  A little water mixed with a few drops of strong vinegar restored him to consciousness.  After the lapse of an hour, the patient was indeed able to resume his journey; but lassitude, headache, and feverish shiverings still remained, and we had a ride of many hours before us ere we could reach our resting-place for the night.  From every hill we climbed the ocean could be seen at so short a distance that we thought an hour’s journeying must bring us there.  But each time another mountain thrust itself between, which it was necessary to climb.  So it went on for many hours, till at length we reached a small valley with a lofty isolated mass of rock in the midst, crowned by a ruined castle.  The approach to this stronghold was by a flight of stairs cut in the rock.  From this point our journey lay at least over a better road, between meadows and fruit-trees, to the little town which we reached at night-fall.  We had a long and weary search before we could obtain for our sick comrade even a room, destitute of every appearance of comfort.  Poor Herr Sattler, more dead than alive, was compelled, after a ride of thirteen hours, to take up his lodging on the hard ground.  The room was perfectly bare, the windows were broken, and the door would not lock.  We were fain to search for a few boards, with which we closed up the windows, that the sick man might at least be sheltered from the current of air.

I then prepared him a dish of rice with vinegar; this was the only refreshment we were able to procure.

The rest of us lay down in the yard; but the anxiety we felt concerning our sick friend prevented us from sleeping much.  He exhibited every symptom of the plague; in this short time his countenance was quite changed; violent headache and exhaustion prevented him from moving, and the burning heat added the pangs of thirst to his other ills.  As we had been travelling for the last day and a half through regions where the pestilence prevailed, it appeared but too probable that Herr Sattler had been attacked by it.  Luckily the patient himself had not any idea of the kind, and we took especial care that he should not read our anxiety in our countenances.

July 9th.

Heaven be praised, Herr Sattler was better to-day, though too weak to continue his journey.  As we had thus some time on our hands, the French gentleman and I resolved to embark in a boat to witness the operation of fishing for sponges, by which a number of the poorer inhabitants of the Syrian coast gain their livelihood.