I returned to Tripoli, and at the time appointed set out for Hamath, found my conductor, and proceeded to Hassia. Coming from Aleppo, I had not passed the lower way again by Antioch. The river which passes through the plains where they cultivate their best tobacco, is the Orontes; it was so swollen with rain, which had fallen in the mountains, that the ford was no longer visible. Stopping at two miserable huts inhabited by a base set called Turcomans, I asked the master of one of them to shew me the ford, which he very readily undertook to do, and I went, for the length of some yards, on rough, but very hard and solid ground. The current before me was, however, so violent, that I had more than once a desire to turn back, but, not suspecting any thing, I continued, when on a sudden man and horse fell out of their depth into the river. I had a rifled gun flung across my shoulder, with a buff belt and swivel. As long as that held, it so embarrassed my hands and legs that I could not swim, and must have sunk; but luckily the swivel gave way, the gun fell to the bottom of the river, and was pickt up in dry weather by order of the basha, at the desire of the French merchants, who kept it for a relict. I and my horse swam separately ashore; at a small distance from thence was a caphar[46], or turnpike, to which, when I came to dry myself, the man told me, that the place where I had crossed was the remains of a stone bridge now entirely carried away; where I had first entered was one of the wings of the bridge, from which I had fallen into the space the first arch occupied, one of the deepest parts of the river; that the people who had misguided me were an infamous set of banditti, and that I might be thankful on many accounts that I had made such an escape from them, and was now on the opposite side. I then prevailed on the caphar-man to shew my servants the right ford. From Hassia we proceeded with our conductor to Cariateen, where there is an immense spring of fine water, which overflows into a large pool. Here, to our great surprise, we found about two thousand of the Annecy encamped, who were quarrelling with Hassan our old friend, the kelp-merchant. This was nothing to us; the quarrel between the Mowalli and Annecy had it seems been made up; for an old man from each tribe on horseback accompanied us to Palmyra: the tribes gave us camels for more commodious travelling, and we passed the desert between Cariateen and Palmyra in a day and two nights, going constantly without sleeping.