in the town. The river supplies the upper town with water by means of buckets fixed to high wheels (Naoura) [Arabic], which empty themselves into stone canals, supported by lofty arches on a level with the upper parts of the town. There are about a dozen of the wheels; the largest of them, called Naoura el Mohammedye, is at least seventy feet in diameter. The town, for the greater part, is well built, although the walls of the dwellings, a few palaces excepted, are of mud; but their interior makes amends for the roughness of their external appearance. The Mutsellim resides in a seraglio, on the banks of the river. I enquired in vain for a piece of marble, with figures in relief, which La Roque saw; but in the corner of a house in the Bazar is a stone with a number [p.147]of small figures and signs, which appears to be a kind of hieroglyphical writing, though it does not resemble that of Egypt. I counted thirteen mosques in the town, the largest of which has a very ancient Minaret. The principal trade of Hamah is with the Arabs, who buy here their tent furniture and clothes. The Abbas, or woollen mantles made here, are much esteemed. Hamah forms a part of the province of Damascus, and is usually the station of three or four hundred horsemen, kept here by the Pasha to check the Arabs, who inundate the country in spring and summer. Few rich merchants are found in the town; but it is the residence of many opulent Turkish gentlemen, who find in it all the luxuries of the large towns, at the same time that they are in some measure removed from the extortions of the government. Naszyf Pasha, of the family of Adein, who has an annual income of about £8000. sterling, has built a very handsome house here. He is well known for his travels in Europe, and Barbary, and for his brave defence of Cairo, after the defeat of the Grand Vizir by General Kleber near Heliopolis. Being curious to see him, I waited upon him, notwithstanding the rule I had prescribed to myself of mixing as little as possible with Turkish grandees, and presented him a letter of recommendation. We conversed for about half an hour; he was very civil for a Pasha, and made many enquiries concerning Prince Augustus (the Duke of Sussex), whom he had known in Italy. The government of Hamah comprises about one hundred and twenty inhabited villages, and seventy or eighty which have been abandoned. The western part of its territory is the granary of northern Syria, though the harvest never yields more than ten for one, chiefly in consequence of the immense numbers of mice, [p.148]which sometimes wholly destroy the crops. I did not see any of these animals.