The place was pointed out to us at a distance, where Bonaparte is said to have shot several thousand prisoners. He has been much blamed for it, and probably not without some cause. If, however, his own account, as I have seen it given, be true, that they had before been his prisoners, and had been set at large on parole, under engagement not again to take up arms against him; that they had broken parole and were again captured while fighting against him; if this were the case, he is, according to the laws of war, less to blame than many have supposed. Not that I would justify him, but bad as he was, his opponents did not give him credit for the good he did, and made the most of his bad actions. Had he lived until the present time, on the throne of France, the state of Europe would probably have been twenty if not forty years in advance of what it now is, in knowledge and arts, in civil and religious liberty. Those who have succeeded to the now divided power, which his powerful arm wielded, have laboured and still labour to hold the people back--to repress the spirit of enterprise and improvement, and especially repress and root out the spirit of freedom. LETTER XI. _October 5th, 1836._ We left Jaffa in the afternoon for Rumla, which lies about half way from Jaffa to the commencement of the hill country, on the road to Jerusalem--leaving the gate of Jaffa, (and I may add, there is only one gate on the land side,) we took a north-east direction. The point of land on which Jaffa stands, a kind of sandy knoll, is higher than the country back of it. We of course made a small descent, and for a considerable distance passed through gardens, enclosed lots and fields, many of them well filled with trees, as fig, orange, lemon, pomegranate, palm. The Indian fig was much used for forming enclosures, and generally planted on a ridge of sand. It makes a very good fence, as the prickles with which it abounds prevent man or beast from coming much in contact with it. Some of these gardens had wells and water-wheels, many of which were at work, mostly with oxen, raising water for the benefit of the trees and vegetables. There is much sand on the district that borders the coast, and in many places directly on the coast the sand has fairly taken possession--nothing is seen but fields of white sand. At the distance of half a mile from the shore, the ground is very little higher, I should think, than the surface of the water; and a number of things indicate that this low district was once a marsh, or at least much subjected to water. And now, in the rainy season, much water would collect on it were it not for its loose and sandy character, through which the water easily runs. The abundance of water, found at a very little distance below the surface, may arise from the fact that it is but little below the level of the sea; and the sandy character of the district allows the water to percolate freely, and thus supply what is taken up by man and vegetables.