Burckhardt reached the coast of Syria at that point where the Aasi, the ancient Orontis, falls into the sea; and immediately prepared to depart for Aleppo with a caravan. Having been intrusted with several chests for the British consul at Aleppo, his baggage appeared considerable; and he was consequently sent for by the aga, who expected a handsome present for permitting them to pass. When questioned by this officer respecting the contents of the chests, he replied that he was entirely ignorant of the matter, but suspected that among other things there was a sort of French drink, called _beer_, with various kinds of eatables. The aga now sent an officer to examine them. A bottle of beer having been broken in loading, “the man tasted it by putting his finger into the liquor, and found it abominably bitter: such was his report to the aga. As a sample of the eatables, he produced a potato which he had taken out of one of the barrels, and that noble root excited general laughter in the room: ‘It is well worth while,’ they said, ‘to send such stuff to such a distance.’ The aga tasted of the raw potato, and spitting it out again, swore at the Frank’s stomach which could bear such food.” The mean opinion which these specimens inspired them with for such merchandise inclined the aga to be content with the trifling sum of ten piastres, which he probably thought more than the value of a whole ship’s cargo of potatoes and beer. Upon the arrival of the caravan at Antakia, our traveller, desirous of studying the manners of all ranks of men, took up his quarters in the khan of the muleteers, where, from a suspicion that he was a Frank in disguise, he was subjected to numerous indignities. The aga’s dragoman, some wretched Frenchman or Piedmontese, being sent by his master to discover the truth, and failing to effect his purpose by any other means, determined, as a last resource, on pulling him by the beard, and at the same time asked him familiarly why he had suffered such a thing to grow? To this Burckhardt replied by striking him on the face, which turned the laugh against the poor dragoman, and was an argument so peculiarly Mohammedan that it seems to have convinced the bystanders of the truth of his assertions. After a delay of four days he continued his journey with the caravan, with the motley members of which he was compelled to maintain an unceasing struggle in defence of his assumed character; a circumstance which proves one of two things, either that the Saonees of the west have by intercourse with Europeans been rendered more acute in discovering impostors, than the Shiahs of Afghanistan and Northern Persia, or that Burckhardt was hitherto somewhat unskilful in his movements; for the reader will no doubt remember that Forster, when he professed Mohammedanism, had much fewer suspicions to combat on his way through Central Asia.