Daily I visited the monuments which covered the plain; and one evening, absorbed in reflection, I had advanced to the Valley of Sepulchres.  I ascended the heights which surround it from whence the eye commands the whole group of ruins and the immensity of the desert.  The sun had sunk below the horizon:  a red border of light still marked his track behind the distant mountains of Syria; the full-orbed moon was rising in the east, on a blue ground, over the plains of the Euphrates; the sky was clear, the air calm and serene; the dying lamp of day still softened the horrors of approaching darkness; the refreshing night breezes attempered the sultry emanations from the heated earth; the herdsmen had given their camels to repose, the eye perceived no motion on the dusky and uniform plain; profound silence rested on the desert; the howlings only of the jackal,* and the solemn notes of the bird of night, were heard at distant intervals.  Darkness now increased, and through the dusk could only be discerned the pale phantasms of columns and walls.  The solitude of the place, the tranquillity of the hour, the majesty of the scene, impressed on my mind a religious pensiveness.  The aspect of a great city deserted, the memory of times past, compared with its present state, all elevated my mind to high contemplations.  I sat on the shaft of a column, my elbow reposing on my knee, and head reclining on my hand, my eyes fixed, sometimes on the desert, sometimes on the ruins, and fell into a profound reverie.

     * An animal resembling a dog and a fox.  It preys on other
     small animals, and upon the bodies of the dead on the field
     of battle.  It is the Canis aureus of Linnaeus.

CHAPTER II.

The reverie.

Here, said I, once flourished an opulent city; here was the seat of a powerful empire.  Yes! these places now so wild and desolate, were once animated by a living multitude; a busy crowd thronged in these streets, now so solitary.  Within these walls, where now reigns the silence of death, the noise of the arts, and the shouts of joy and festivity incessantly resounded; these piles of marble were regular palaces; these fallen columns adorned the majesty of temples; these ruined galleries surrounded public places.  Here assembled a numerous people for the sacred duties of their religion, and the anxious cares of their subsistence; here industry, parent of enjoyments, collected the riches of all climes, and the purple of Tyre was exchanged for the precious thread of Serica;* the soft tissues of Cassimere for the sumptuous tapestry of Lydia; the amber of the Baltic for the pearls and perfumes of Arabia; the gold of Ophir for the tin of Thule.