Our meals and our beverage were very simple.  In the morning we had pilau, and in the evening we had pilau; our drink was lukewarm water, qualified with a little rum.

From Beyrout to the neighbourhood of St. Jean d’Acre, the coast and a considerable belt of land adjoining it are sandy and barren.  Near Acre every thing changed; we once more beheld pretty country-houses surrounded by pomegranate and orange plantations, and a noble aqueduct intersects the plain.  Mount Carmel, alone barren and unfruitful, stands in striking contrast to the beauteous landscape around; jutting boldly out towards the sea, it forms the site of a handsome and spacious convent.

The town of St. Jean d’Acre and its fortifications were completely destroyed during the last war (in 1840), and appear to sigh in vain for repairs.  The houses and mosques are full of cannon-balls and shot-holes.  Every thing stands and lies about as though the enemy had departed but yesterday.  Six cannons peer threateningly from the wall.  The town and fortifications are both built on a tongue of land washed by the sea.

May 27th.

During the night we reached Caesarea.  With the eloquence of a Demosthenes, our captain endeavoured to dissuade us from our project of landing here; he pointed out to us the dangers to which we were exposing ourselves, and the risks we should run from Bedouins and snakes.  The former, he averred, were accustomed to conceal themselves in hordes among the ruins, in order to ease travellers of their effects and money; being well aware that such spots were only visited by curious tourists with well-filled purses, they were continually on the watch, like the robber-knights of the good old German empire.  “An enemy no less formidable,” said the captain, “was to be encountered in the persons of numerous snakes lurking in the old walls and on the weed-covered ground, which endangered the life of the traveller at every step.”  We were perfectly well aware of these facts, having gleaned them partly from descriptions of voyages, partly from oral traditions; and so they were not powerful enough to arrest our curiosity.  The captain himself was really less actuated by the sense of our danger, in advising us to abandon our undertaking, than by the reflection of the time it lost him; but he exerted himself in vain.  He was obliged to cast anchor, and at daybreak to send a boat ashore with us.

Our arms consisted of parasols and sticks (the latter we carried in order to beat the bushes); we were escorted by the captain, his servant, and a couple of sailors.

In the ruins we certainly met with a few suspicious-looking characters in the shape of wandering Bedouins.  As it was too late to beat a retreat, we advanced bravely towards them with trusting and friendly looks.  The Bedouins did the same, and so there was an end of this dangerous affair.  We climbed from one fragment to another, and certainly spent more than two hours among the ruins, without sustaining the slightest injury at the hands of these people.  Of the threatened snakes we saw not a single one.