"It was a matter of surprise to us, how our horses stood without injury all the exposure, severe work, and often short commons, to which they were constantly subjected. When we came to a place where barley was to be procured, the grooms carried away as much as they could; when none was to be had, we gave our nags peas and _tibbin_, (chopped straw, the only forage used in the East,) or any thing we could lay hands on; they had little or no grooming, and frequently the saddles were not even removed from their backs. But I believe that nothing save the high mettle of the desert blood would carry an animal through all this toil and privation; and as to the much-extolled kindness of the Arab towards his horse, although it may be the case in the far deserts of the Hedged and Hedjar, I can avow that I never saw these noble animals treated with more inhuman neglect than I witnessed in the whole of my wanderings through Syria." The dreariness of a ride through the desolate plains and rugged rocks of Palestine, was diversified with startling adventures; and the fact of several of the powers of Europe and many of the tribes of Asia having chosen that sterile region for their battle-place, gave rise to some very odd coincidences. People from all the ends of the earth, who were lounging away their existence some three or four months before, without any anticipation of treading in the footsteps of the crusaders--some smoking strong tobacco in the coffeehouses of Berlin, or leaning gracefully (like the Chinese Admiral Kwang) against the pillars of the Junior United Service Club in London--or driving a heavy curricle in the Prado at Vienna--or reading powerfully for honours at the Great Go at Oxford--or climbing Albanian hills--or reclining in the silken recesses of a harem at Constantinople--all were thrown together in such unexpected groups, and found themselves so curiously banded together, that the tame realities of an ordinary campaign were thrown completely into the shade. The following introduces us to another member of the foray, whose character seems to have been such a combination of the gallant soldier and light-hearted troubadour, that we read of his after fate, in dying of the plague at Damascus, with great regret:--