It was at Homs--the ancient Emessa--that Zenobia was brought as a captive into the presence of Aurelian. "Why did she not there fall? why add the remaining lustreless years to her else glorious life? why, in the words of Gibbon, sink insensibly into the Roman matron? Zenobia fat, dowdy, and contented--profanation! Zimmerman, however, invests the close of her career with graceful philosophy: at Tivoli, in happy tranquillity, she fed the greatness of her soul with the noble images of Homer, and the exalted precepts of Plato; supported the adversity of her fortunes with fortitude and resignation, and learnt that the anxieties attendant on ambition are happily exchanged for the enjoyments of ease and the comforts of philosophy." From Homs we reach Aleppo in four days. "It was a spring morning, and a gentle keenness, wafted from snow-clad mountains, rendered the climate delightful. The town lay beneath me, and each terrace, court, serai, and leewan lay open to my view. I saw Aleppo was built in a hollow, from which ran plains north and west, surrounded by mountains. To the north, Djebel Ma Hash and his range, untouched by the soft smiles of the young spring, lay deep in the snow; the flat connected grass-grown roofs and well-watered sparkling courts, with their carefully-tended trees, relieving the glare of the houses, while all around the town lay belted in its garden. The scene was pretty and pleasing; here and there the forests of tomb-stones, the perfect minaret, the Eastern dome swelling up from the mob of flat roofs,--these formed a sight that told I was in the East, in the cradle of mankind--the home of history."...