“Within the inclosure, which files of armed troops surround, the wretched victims are crowded together, bowed down with despair, while, pressing upon every avenue, their wives and daughters and aged mothers may be seen, wildly darting their frenzied glances through the captives in search of a missing relative, or bursting into paroxysms of despair on beholding the lost objects of their fears; and, all around, the air is rent by the cries of these unfortunates, cursing, as I have heard them, the very name of their prophet, and invoking the Deity himself to avenge the cause of the poor and the oppressed. The wretched conscripts are taken immediately before the medical men of the army, and, unless physically disqualified, are sent off to the Castle, confined there, dressed as soldiers, and in a week or fortnight, marched out of the place and drafted into the regiments. This is no exaggerated picture, and many travellers in England—and one especially, Sir Edwin Pearson, who was lately with me at Damascus during one of these scenes,—can verify this statement, and attest the general wretchedness of the people. In the dead of the night the quarters of the city have been entered by armed soldiers, the houses forcibly opened, and their male inmates dragged from them. At these times the shops are closed for days, and all business is suspended. Considerable loss is consequently sustained by all classes, and as the debts that may be due by those who are seized are seldom or never recovered, large sums are lost in that manner to the citizens. “The soldiers avail themselves of the general panic to get money from the aged or maimed,—and even by entering houses and seizing children in them, who are liberated by their frightened mothers at any immediate sacrifice.” It is not surprising that people, thus driven to despair, should revolt. In the year 1834 the insurrections began in the Haouran, and spread afterwards to the country of the Druses and Naplousians. These insurrections, however, Mehemet Ali managed with his usual energy to put down, and established more security to the people from being plundered by anybody but himself; that, and a greater facility and safety in travelling through the country, appear to have been the only merits of Mehemet Ali’s government in Syria. Thus things proceeded for a while, the Pacha exerting himself to fortify the passes of Taurus, and building barracks at Antioch and other places, particularly at St. Jean d’Acre, while Ibrahim and his officers laboured to introduce new cultures, as of the sugar-cane, the indigo plant, &c., and with some success; but this could not reconcile the Syrians to the grinding monopolies and vexatious burdens of their ruler, and very strong measures were required to keep up the Egyptian authority.