The moment was favourable for the Viceroy’s great designs. Europe was sufficiently agitated to leave him no apprehensions of an intervention on the part of Russia. The Albanians and the Borneans were in open revolt, and insurrections had broken out also in several Pashalics on the side of Upper Asia. The Sultan was considered the slave of the Russians, and his conduct excited the contempt and hatred of the whole empire. In the meantime, since the revolution the exactions of the government had extended to every object of production and industry, while the conscription decimated the most industrious portion of the population; and if to this organised system of spoliation we farther add the ravages of the plague and cholera, we may form some idea of the wretched state of those provinces, and shall be no longer surprised that the Egyptians were everywhere hailed as deliverers. Ibrahim Pasha, the step-son of Mehemet Ali, was placed at the head of the Egyptian army. Of a short, thick-set figure, he possesses that gigantic strength which Homer so loved in his heroes, and which inspires such respect among barbarous nations. To strike off the head of a bull with a blow of his scimitar--to execute, like Peter the Great, his victims with his own hand--to fall, dead drunk, amid the broken wrecks of champagne bottles, are three diversions of his. But latterly his manners, from his intercourse with Europeans, have been somewhat polished, and in deference to them, he has displayed both clemency and dignity--in fact, Ibrahim is excessively anxious to acquire the good opinion of Europe. He possesses all that strong common-sense that so distinguishes the Turks, rather than an elevated intelligence of mind. Soliman Bey, a renegade Frenchman, formerly an officer on the staff of Marshal Grouchy, was associated with him, and it is to him that the success of the Egyptian army may be chiefly attributed. Syria, with her various productions, was the first country which offered itself to the conquest of the Egyptians. Closed entirely on the side of Asia by Mount Amanus, which belongs to the chain of Taurus, and extends from the Gulf of Scanderoun to the Euphrates, she is bounded on one side by the Mediterranean, and on the other by the desert. Her length from Aintab to Gaza is one hundred and fifty leagues, and the mean breadth about thirty. By a single glance at the map we perceive the most important military points for the defence of Syria are the fortress of Saint Jean d’Acre; Tyre, which ought to be fortified; Bolbeck, as the key to several valleys; Antakea, the passage of the Beilan; Alexandretta, situated upon a tongue of land between the marshes and the sea; and lastly, Aentab and Zenyma, which command the two passages on the right side of Mount Amanus.