Tripoline having made his purchase of grain from the Aga, the latter sent on board our ship three fat sheep in earnest of his engagements. In six days the ship was to begin loading. The Tripoline being at leisure during this time, I persuaded him to go with me to Tarsus, in search of a further conveyance for me by sea or land; one of the other Tripolines was likewise desirous of looking out for a passage for Beirout; the excursion was therefore soon agreed upon. We formed a small caravan, and set out on horseback on the morning of the 30th. The road from our anchoring place to Tarsus crosses the above mentioned plain in an easterly direction: we passed several small rivulets which empty themselves into the sea, and which, to judge from the size of their beds, swell in the rainy season to considerable torrents. We had rode about an hour, when I saw at half an hour’s distance to the north of our route, the ruins of a large castle, upon a hill of a regular shape in the plain; half an hour further towards Tarsus, at an equal distance from our road, upon a second tumulus, were ruins resembling the former; a third insulated hillock, close to which we passed midway of our route, was overgrown with grass, without any ruins or traces of them. I did not see in the whole plain any other elevations of ground but the three just mentioned. Not far from the first ruins, stands in the plain an insulated column. Large groups of trees shew from afar the site of Tarsus. We passed a small river before we entered the town, larger than those we had met on the road. The western outer gate of the town, through which we entered, is of ancient structure; it is a fine arch, the interior vault of which is in perfect preservation: on the outside are some remains of a sculptured frieze. I did not see any inscriptions. To the right and left of this gateway are seen the ancient ruined walls of the city, which extended in this direction farther than the town at present does. From the outer gateway, it is about four hundred paces to the modern entrance of the city; the intermediate ground is filled up by a burying ground on one side of the road, and several gardens with some miserable huts on the other. We led our horses to the Khan of the muleteers, and went ourselves to the Khan of the merchants, where we found tolerable accommodation, the brother of the Tripoline being known here. Our room was soon filled with all the foreign merchants who lived in the Khan, and the principal town merchants; we sold to them a few silk handkerchiefs and coarse cambrick, and were plagued with their company for the whole remaining part of the day. The foreign merchants were a party of Kahines, several Aleppines, and some Constantinopolitans. In the evening the alley at the gate of the Khan was transformed into a dark coffee room, where every body went to smoke a pipe. As we were strangers, we were greeted at our entrance with the usual politeness of Orientals towards travellers;