that it is now the year of the world three thousand eight hundred and thirty.  Were it later —­ for example, were it the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and forty-five, we should be deprived of this extraordinary spectacle.  In the nineteenth century Antioch is —­ that is to say, Antioch will be —­ in a lamentable state of decay.  It will have been, by that time, totally destroyed, at three different periods, by three successive earthquakes.  Indeed, to say the truth, what little of its former self may then remain, will be found in so desolate and ruinous a state that the patriarch shall have removed his residence to Damascus.  This is well.  I see you profit by my advice, and are making the most of your time in inspecting the premises —­ in

-satisfying your eyes

With the memorials and the things of fame

That most renown this city.-

I beg pardon; I had forgotten that Shakespeare will not flourish for seventeen hundred and fifty years to come.  But does not the appearance of Epidaphne justify me in calling it grotesque?

“It is well fortified; and in this respect is as much indebted to nature as to art.”

Very true.

“There are a prodigious number of stately palaces.”

There are.

“And the numerous temples, sumptuous and magnificent, may bear comparison with the most lauded of antiquity.”

All this I must acknowledge.  Still there is an infinity of mud huts, and abominable hovels.  We cannot help perceiving abundance of filth in every kennel, and, were it not for the over-powering fumes of idolatrous incense, I have no doubt we should find a most intolerable stench.  Did you ever behold streets so insufferably narrow, or houses so miraculously tall?  What gloom their shadows cast upon the ground!  It is well the swinging lamps in those endless colonnades are kept burning throughout the day; we should otherwise have the darkness of Egypt in the time of her desolation.

“It is certainly a strange place!  What is the meaning of yonder singular building?  See! it towers above all others, and lies to the eastward of what I take to be the royal palace.”

That is the new Temple of the Sun, who is adored in Syria under the title of Elah Gabalah.  Hereafter a very notorious Roman Emperor will institute this worship in Rome, and thence derive a cognomen, Heliogabalus.  I dare say you would like to take a peep at the divinity of the temple.  You need not look up at the heavens; his Sunship is not there —­ at least not the Sunship adored by the Syrians.  That deity will be found in the interior of yonder building.  He is worshipped under the figure of a large stone pillar terminating at the summit in a cone or pyramid, whereby is denoted Fire.

“Hark —­ behold! —­ who can those ridiculous beings be, half naked, with their faces painted, shouting and gesticulating to the rabble?”

Some few are mountebanks.  Others more particularly belong to the race of philosophers.  The greatest portion, however —­ those especially who belabor the populace with clubs —­ are the principal courtiers of the palace, executing as in duty bound, some laudable comicality of the king’s.