"North, south and east, dead plain; west, a low range of hills, and beyond, the fair Anti-Lebanon in all its snowy beauty. Desert all around us, but no dreary waste. Here and there were loose stones and rocks; the rest a carpet of green, fresh, dewy grass, filled with every hue of wild-flowers--the poppy in its gorgeous red, the hyacinth, the simple daisy and others, thick as they could struggle up, all freshened with a breeze heavy with the scents of thyme. The lark sent forth its thrill of joy in welcome to the coming day; before us the pennon of the spearmen gleamed as they wound along the plain. We passed the site of an Arab encampment strewn with fire-blackened stones, bones, and well picked carcasses. Storks and painted quails sauntered slowly away at our approach, or perched and looked as if they questioned our right to pass. At eight o'clock halted at a khan called Hasiah also. The population consisting of robust, wild-looking fellows; and very pretty women poured out to sell hard-boiled eggs, leban, bread, and milk: they were all Mussulmans.... "We were soon disturbed by a multitude of sick, which recalled to one's mind how in this land, of old, the same style of faces, probably in the same costumes, crowded to Him who healed. The lame, carried by the healthy; feeble mothers with sickly babes; hale men showing wounds long self-healed; others with or without complaints." Arrived at Homs, we have-- "Fish for dinner, from the Lake of Kades, whose blue waters we saw in the distance to-day. The Lebanon opens behind that lake, and you may pass to the sea, on the plain, without a hill. This plain, but rarely visited, is among the most interesting portions of Syria, containing numerous convents, castles, and ruins, and its people are still but little known. Maszyad, the principal seat of the sect called Ismayly: the Ansayrii also, and Koords, besides Turks, Christians, and gipsys, may be found among its varied population. The ancient castle of El Hoshn, supposed, by the lions over its gates, to have been built by the Count of Thoulouse, is well worth a visit. The Orontes, taking its rise in a rock, from whence it gushes just west of the Tel of Khroumee,--(true bearing from Homs from south 60° 32' east,)--flows through the Lake of Kades, and passes about 2° to the west of Homs: it is called Nahr El Aazzy, or "the rebel river," some say because of its running north, while all the other rivers run south; more probably, however, on account of its rapidity and strength of current. It is an historical stream; on its banks were altars, and the country it waters is almost unmatched for beauty-- 'Oh, sacred stream! whose dust Is the fragments of the altars of idolatry.'"