be taken to the custom-house Khan ترك خان; they are weighed there to determine the amount of the sum due to the muleteer for freight, and a duty must be paid for them to the Grand Signior, which together with the taxation money of the Christians and Jews, is the only branch of revenue which the Janissaries, the present masters of the town, still allow the Porte to retain. The English consular house is in that very Khan. I was now arrived at Aleppo in a shape which entirely left it to my option, either to continue in my disguise, or to avow my European origin. After a long conversation on that subject with Mr. Barker, I was convinced that it would better answer the purpose of my stay in Aleppo to choose the latter, and my reasons for it were the following: at the time I left England and Malta, I imagined that the intercourse between Cairo and Aleppo was frequent, and that it might easily happen, that Cairine merchants might see me here and recognise me afterwards at home, or that travelling Aleppines who knew me here, might afterwards see me again in Egypt. The departure of the Syrian pilgrim caravan to Mecca, not having taken place for the last three years, has almost annihilated the commercial intercourse overland between the two countries. At the meeting of the Syrian and African caravan near Mecca, Egyptian merchants used formerly to join the former, and return with them to Damascus and Aleppo, and vice versa; at present the little commerce carried on between Cairo and Aleppo, is entirely in the hands of a few Turkish and Greek houses at Tripoli, Latikia, and Alexandria, and the Egyptian merchants themselves never come to Aleppo. Had I continued in my disguise, and continued to live exclusively amongst the Turks, opportunities would have frequently happened to put the veracity of my story to the test. East Indians come from time to time to Aleppo with the Bagdad caravan, and many of the Bagdad and Bassorah merchants established at Aleppo have been in India. My person would have been infinitely more noticed than it now is, if taking a shop in the bazar, as I first intended, I should have exposed myself to the curiosity of the whole town; I should have entirely foregone the instruction to be derived from books and masters skilled in the language; and moreover I have no doubt that the French Consul residing here would have heard of my arrival, and have done every thing to put my pursuits in a dubious light. These are the reasons which convinced me, that for the present time it was more advisable to appear in a shape which would preclude the intrusion of curious inquirers; and afford more facility to my studies. I continue my name of Ibrahim, and pass in my Turkish dress unnoticed in the crowds of the street and the bazars. The Consul receives me at his house as a travelling country merchant of his; and as it frequently happens that people coming into the Levant change their names; nobody wonders at my being called with an oriental name. I had