This morning, two men belonging to a village in this neighborhood, were severely beaten, and their wives or sisters violated by some soldiers belonging to the boats.  This afternoon, a soldier belonging to our boat, accompanied by one of the Greeks already mentioned, and the Frank cook of the Proto Medico went to the same village, without my knowledge, to participate in this licentious amusement.  They were somewhat surprised and terribly frightened on their arrival at this village, on finding themselves suddenly surrounded by about two hundred peasants armed with clubs, who fiercely demanded what they wanted, asking them if they had come, as others had before them to-day, to cudgel the men and violate the women, and ordered them to be off immediately to the boats.  The luckless fornicators, confounded by this unexpected reception, were heartily glad to be allowed to sneak back to the boat in confusion and terror.  On their arrival, and this affair becoming known to me, I abused them with all the eloquence I could muster, first, for their villainy, and then for their cowardice, as they were well armed, and had fled before the face of cudgels.  When we stopped at night, we were told that we were about three hours distance from the camp.

10th of Rebi.  The river and the wind still obliged us to proceed slowly by the cordel.  The country we passed to-day was fine, and had been cultivated with great care, but deserted.  The face of the fields was almost covered with the household furniture of the villagers.  Straw mats, equal to any sold at Cairo, were abandoned by hundreds on the spots where they had been employed for the night by the troops, when on the pursuit after the brigands who had fled from the last battle.  Many of the largest of these mats the soldiers had formed into square huts for the different guards.  The abandoned harvests waved solitary in the wind, and the numerous water-wheels were all motionless.  We passed several large castles, not many days back garrisoned by fierce marauders, who claimed all around them, or within the reach of their horses’ feet, as theirs; and many well built villages, whose inhabitants were the slaves of their will.  In one of these deserted castles, we found fragments of vessels of porcelain, basins of marble, chests of polished Indian wood, the pillage probably of some caravan, and a small brass cannon.  The walls of the apartments were hung with large and colored straw mats, of fine workmanship, and showed many indications of the pains taken to make them comfortable and convenient.  An hour after noon, we met great numbers of men, women, and children, accompanied by their herds and flocks, who were returning to this abandoned country, by the encouragement and under the protection of the Pasha.  It was an affecting sight to see almost every one of these unfortunate women carrying her naked and forlorn children either upon her shoulders or in her arms, or leading them by the hand.  The pleasure I felt at seeing these