After I had drank a dish of coffee, I asked the Aga what his pleasure was; he answered me, by making a sign with his thumb and forefinger, like a person counting money. I had several chests for the British Consul at Aleppo with me, and had also marked my own baggage with the Consul’s name, thinking by these means to prevent its being examined. He asked me what the chests contained, I expressed my ignorance about it, telling him only, that I thought there was a sort of Frank drink (beer), and some eatables, which I had been charged with at Malta, for the Consul, on my way home. He sent one of his people to look over their contents; a bottle of beer had 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 potatoe which he had taken out of one of the barrels, and that noble root excited a 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 potatoe, and spitting it out again, swore at the Frank’s stomach which could bear such food. The other trunks were now left unexamined; and I was asked fifteen piastres for the permission to depart with them. I gave him ten piastres, and received from him a sort of receipt for that money, because I told him that without it, the Consul would never believe that I had really paid down the money as duty upon his effects. The Aga was very high in his expressions, talking of his grandeur, how little he cared about the Sultan, and still less for any Consul, &c. He laughed a great deal at my Arabic, which certainly was hardly intelligible; but he did not much trouble himself with questions about my affairs, his mind seeming now solely taken up by the hope of extorting money from the Aleppine merchants, and so I left him, and soon afterwards, about an hour before sunset, departed from Suedieh, with part of the caravan, the rest intending to pass the night there. The road from Suedieh to Antakia crosses the plain for about one hour’s distance. On the right runs in a deep bed a branch of the Aasi, and forms in this place several islands; on your left extends the well cultivated plain of Suedieh. As we approached the mountains which inclose the plain on the western side, we passed several extensive and regularly planted orchards, belonging to the Aga of Antakia; the road now lay through lanes thickly overhung on both sides with shrubs, and I was entering a country famous for the beauties of its landscape scenery, when the sun shed its last rays. We continued our way in the dark for about one hour and a half longer, and halted near a rivulet, at the entrance of the hills, where men and horses were fed: we remained there till about two hours after midnight.