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After parting with Mr. Bankes, all my attention was directed to securing a safe journey from Aleppo to Baghdad, in which Mr. Barker rendered me every assistance that I could desire. Through his influence, principally, a respectable merchant of Moosul, who had halted at Aleppo on his return from a pilgrimage to Mecca to purchase goods, and was about to return to his native city with a large caravan, consented, for a moderate sum, to take me under his protection as one of his party; enjoining only a certain condition on my part, that I should conceal the fact of my being an Englishman or Christian from all but himself and his immediate dependants; and that I should conform in every respect to whatever rules he might think proper to lay down for the guidance of all the individuals of his party during the journey. To this I readily consented. I was to provide my own horse and baggage for the way; but as I could now speak the Arabic language pretty fluently, neither servant nor interpreter were needed; and I had the prospect before me of as safe and pleasant a journey as can well be expected in a caravan made up of all sorts of characters, and passing through so unsettled and uncivilized a country.

The day of our departure was fixed for the 26th, and I employed the short time that remained before this should arrive in writing letters to my friends in Europe, and in completing all the preparations that I thought necessary for the journey. The circumstances of my stay at Aleppo had been extremely unfavourable to the indulgence of my usual habit of visiting every place of interest, and preserving daily notes of what I saw and heard; from which alone faithful pictures of persons, places, or things, can be afterwards drawn. My confinement in the khan had so depressed my spirits as to render me absolutely incompetent to do more than preserve a narrative of that confinement itself. And after my

removal to Mr. Barker's house, every successive day, from morning to night, was one entire round of entertainment and pleasure, excursions to gardens, visits of ceremony, evening parties, &c. which rendered it impossible either to read, write, or reflect with

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advantage, so that these duties were necessarily abandoned. consequence of these obstacles, I preserved fewer recollections of Aleppo than of any other place in which I had passed so many days; but, as this city has been much more frequently described than any other in Syria, and has had even a separate history of it written by Doctor Russell, who resided there as an English physician for many years, it is of the less importance.* I can only say that it appeared to me one of the best built of all the cities of the East that I had yet seen; and though a considerable distance from the sea, it has a greater number of European residents, and these all enjoying greater freedom, than any of the larger cities subject to Turkish government, excepting only Constantinople, Smyrna, and Alexandria. The native population appeared also more actively happy, and in better condition, than the subjects of irresponsible despots usually are.

The character of the present governor was sufficient to account for all this. Though possessing unlimited power, like all his predecessors, it had been retained in the family of his immediate ancestors for several years back, and he wished to transmit it to his children. He silently acknowledged, therefore, the influence of public opinion, and thought it not derogatory to his dignity to consult the welfare of his subjects in most of the measures that he pursued. The result was increased happiness to

* Haleb or Hhaleb was called anciently Aran Tsaba, according to Benjamin of Tudela, where the sultan Noraldin had a palace surrounded by a high wall. There were neither wells nor fountains in the town; and the inhabitants drank chiefly of rain preserved in cisterns, there called Al Gub. There were then 1500 Jews there.

On doit savoir, que le nom de Halep vient du Syrien, qui est Chalybon; et que, pour rendre la lettre initiale, il faut y employer l'aspiration dure, ou le Hha plutôt que le Hé, dont on ne fait usage ici que par adoucissement. Les Ecrivains Grecs du Bas Empire ont remplacé la lettre dont il s'agit par un Chi-X; et dans Robert de St. Michel, la voyelle que suit est precedée d'une consonne, en écrivant Galapsa. Sous les Seleucides, le nom de Beroa, tiré de la Macedoine, étoit transporté à cette ville.— D'Anville, sur le Tigre et l'Euphrate, p. 22.

Ptolemy had made Bercea separate from Chalybon, which was placed near Hierapolis: but this the French geographer has successfully combated and confuted.

them, and increased popularity and security to himself; and, though far short of the freedom which men ought to enjoy, the condition of the people at Aleppo appeared to me to be more favourable than in any other part of Syria, because their industry was less taxed, and their governor was more liberal and more enlightened than Turkish rulers in general.

The continuation of this comparative state of happiness depended, however, entirely on the continued life or continued disposition of the individual then at the head of affairs. Securities for good government there were absolutely none. The laws were uncertain and unknown; the people had no share whatever in the administration of their own concerns; and if the present pasha, from caprice, or evil disposition, should determine on taking off the heads of the most innocent individuals in the city, there was no power that could prevent the indulgence of his cruelty. Such are the blessings of absolute and irresponsible despotism!

CONTAINING

A REFUTATION OF CERTAIN UNFOUNDED CALUMNIES

INDUSTRIOUSLY CIRCULATED

AGAINST THE AUTHOR OF THIS WORK,

BY

Mr. LEWIS BURCKHARDT, Mr. WILLIAM JOHN BANKES,

AND

THE QUARTERLY REVIEW.

IT may appear to many persons, unacquainted with the causes of the delay, as somewhat surprising that certain unfounded calumnies contained in THE QUARTERLY REVIEW So long ago as the commencement of 1822, should not have been publicly answered in England before the close of the year 1824. As this impression, wherever entertained, cannot fail to be unfavourable, I take the earliest opportunity to remove it, even before entering on the merits of the case: being ready to admit, that whoever remains for a long period voluntarily silent under imputations that deeply affect his character, furnishes presumptive evidence of his indifference to the good opinion and esteem of mankind, and consequently deprives himself of all just claim to their sympathy and regard.

I shall state, therefore, that when these calumnies first appeared in January 1822, I was residing in India, where the number of the Quarterly Review in which they were contained (No. 52.) did not reach until August of the same year. It had not been landed in Calcutta, however, three days, before a most ample refutation, containing all the important matter included in this Appendix, was issued from the press, and by sale and gratuitous distribution about 2000 copies were placed in the hands of the British Indian public.

Copies of these documents were then sent immediately to England, for re-publication here, either in any periodical work, or in a separate form. By the time of their reaching England, upwards of a year had elapsed; and it was then thought, by the parties to whom they were sent, that the interest of the subject had gone by, and that the refutation would not be extensively read if published in a separate form; while none of the periodicals could include it in their sheets in that perfect state in which alone it could be read with advantage. Funds were also sent to England at the same time for commencing a prosecution against the parties: but it was thought that this could not be satisfactorily conducted without my

presence; and thus every step that I had yet taken to obtain reparation or redress had been ineffectual. Towards the close of 1823, I arrived in England myself, and the very first step taken by me was to commence legal proceedings against the principal agents in creating and spreading the calumnies adverted to. From that moment to this I have never relaxed in my endeavours to bring them to justice; but, by the aid of their influence, their purses, and the scandalously defective state of the law in this respect, they have hitherto succeeded in procuring delay after delay, on one frivolous pretence or another, being evidently ashamed or afraid to come at once to the encounter, like honest men, capable of establishing their assertions by evidence of their truth.

During this interval, the present Volume of Travels has been passing through the press, delayed unavoidably, from time to time, in its progress, by the multiplicity of other occupations on my hands; and even now brought out under the most distracting and incessant cares, and perpetual interruptions, the most unfavourable to the satisfactory execution of any literary labours, but particularly those involving in their very nature great care and research.

The publication of this volume has always been regarded by me as the fittest and best opportunity for printing, in an Appendix, the calumnies of the several individuals named before, and the refutations which were instantly opposed to them, on the first appearance of the calumnies themselves in India. It is essential that the readers of the present volume should see the real grounds on which the accuracy of my preceding one has been impugned, and the facts and arguments by which such imputations on its fidelity have been repelled. It is desirable that the literary world in general should also see recorded, what authors can say of critics, as well as what critics can say of authors.

The Reviewers have carried their insolence and injustice to a pitch beyond endurance: and far

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