Sidon and Beyroot. It was the one in which the Emperor Barbarossa was drowned, while engaged in a crusade. He traveled up this stream to its source, and, after dark, reached the residence of the Emir, one of the most romantic spots he had seen. The Druses -a singular people-occupied these mountains. They have preserved a species of independence, and were governed by their own princes. He was received and treated with true Arab hospitality. The palace was by far the most magnificent building in Syria, and more than four times the size of the President's house. General Cass understood that the Emir kept a thousand servants; and, during this day's journeying, he saw, for the first time, those horns alluded to in the Scripture, which are worn by the women. They were, at least, fifteen inches long, and rise over the forehead, covered by a veil, and most uncouth looking objects they were. He was back to Lady Stanhope's by the hour indicated, the next day, and was introduced into her private apartment. He found her sitting, dressed like an Arab, clothed in a robe, with a turban upon her head, and smoking a long pipe. She was tall and spare, with a wan and sickly complexion, and, apparently, about sixtyfive years of age. There was a settled melancholy, which added to the interest of her appearance, and the recollection of what she had been, contrasted with what she was, produced a powerful impression upon her visitor. Engaged, in early life, to Sir John Moore, he looked for those traits which might be supposed to have attracted this great captain. But the remains were not to be found.' General Cass had an interesting interview with his eccentric hostess, although she had so far lost her command of the English language as to be driven occasionally to have recourse to the Arabic. She spoke, with vivacity, of many of the distinguished compeers of her uncle-William Pitt. She had traversed almost all the country between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean, and, by her conduct and her largesses, acquired an extraordinary influence over the Arabs. She was even saluted Queen of Palmyra, amid the interesting ruins which attest, on a small oasis in the middle of the desert, the former power of Zenobia. But she had found the Ishmaelites poor pillars for a throne to stand upon-a foundation as unstable as their own sandy ocean. They cried "more! more!" till the lady's treasury was nearly exhausted.

And General Cass was in Tyre. "How changed," he writes, "is this Turko-Egyptian-Arabic town-dirty and disgusting as it

is, and filled with all manner of abominations-from the mighty Tyre of antiquity, the Queen of Nations! Surely has the malediction of the Almighty fallen upon her, and the prophecy of Ezekiel been fulfilled, that the world would lament over, 'saying, What city is like Tyre-like the destroyed in the midst of the sea?' It is, at present, a small place, situated on the shores of the Mediterranean, and upon an extensive plain, now sterile and uncultivated, but once rich and productive. The Ridges of Lebanon diminish here much in hight, and recede from the sea, so as to leave an extent of country beautiful to the eye, but desolate and dreary. The town contains about twenty-five hundred inhabitants, and it is the very picture of misery. The buildings are old, mean, and dilapidated; the streets are narrow, dirty, and crooked, and with all the disgusting appendages of a Turkish town. The inhabitants are in the last state of destitution. The Governor is a negro, who came out with his Egyptian troops to do me honor, and gave us a salvo from a rusty piece of ordnance, calculated to terrify his friends more than his enemies. Never did the uncertainty of human pomp and power strike me with more force than when I passed under the rude portal of that city, and contrasted our entree, preceded by a few miserable Turkish troops, led by a negro, and surrounded by a crowd as wretched as even Syria could furnish, with the splendid processions which had many times traversed the same route, with all 'the pomp and circumstance' of eastern pageantry. I went to the house of a person calling himself the American Consul-an American Arab. The consulates in this region are desirable situations, not for their emoluments, but because they confer valuable privileges and immunities upon the possessor. They are preceded in public by two persons, carrying long staves, with silver heads, and they enjoy an entire exemption from all impositions, and from the jurisdiction of the local authorities. After some refreshment and repose-for the day was a burning one I proposed to return the visit of our Ethiopean friend, but was told, quite frankly and without hesitation, by the consul, that he was too intoxicated to see us; and I sat still, waiting the happy moment of his excellency's return to sobriety."

General Cass, returning to France, arrived in Paris in November, 1837, after an absence of eight months. He had seen many of the most celebrated objects of nature and art in the East, and returned from them disappointed, with but three exceptions. St.

Peter's, at Rome, fulfilled and surpassed all previous conceptions; and, after all that had been written upon the monuments of antiquity, he believed that superb basilic was fitted to produce more powerful impressions upon the spectator than any other building ever constructed by human hands. The ruins of Baalbec was another, and might be approached with similar convictions; and the traveler, however highly wrought might be his expectations, would leave its columns, its porticos, and its enormous masses of hewn stone, with sentiments of wonder and admiration. The river Nile was the third object that surpassed his most sanguine anticipations.

The most interesting relic of the ancient vegetable creation he found upon one of the Ridges of Lebanon, not far from the renowned temple of Baalbec. It consisted of twelve gigantic cedars, the remains of the primitive forest which once covered that great mountain chain of Syria, and which yet rear their heads, prodigies of vegetation, and each surmounted with a dome of foliage overshadowing the spectator, as in the time of biblical story. One of them is forty-five feet in circumference, and all, both in size and hight, tell of the long ages that have swept over them. If these mute monuments of the past could rehearse the scenes that have transpired in the shadow of their foliage, what lessons might they not teach, in the long interval that has elapsed since these hills resounded with the noise of the workmen preparing the timber for the temple of Jerusalem, to the solitude which establishes its dwelling place wherever the Moslem plants his standard.

He saw the pyramids, mounds of earth, and tumuli, often spoken of by tourists and travelers, but he did not survey them with superstitious awe. Like the aboriginal structures and mounds of his own country, he easily solved, in his own mind, their origin and use. Judging from the social condition and institutions of any people, civilized or barbarous, there are but three objects, in his opinion, to which they could have been applied. These are defense, religious worship, and inhumation of the dead. According to the nature of their construction, they have all served for one or other of these purposes; and, perhaps, some of them, probably the most extensive, may have been, at the same time, fortresses, temples, and cemeteries. He has found them in every situation; in the lowest valleys and on the highest hills; in positions almost inaccessible, as well as in those where defense would seem to be

hopeless, according to any system of warfare known to us; supplied with water and wholly deprived of it; and of every form and extent, from a small, isolated enclosure to works covering a large extent of space, and presenting great variety in their size and in the distribution of their component parts.

But, in traveling through the desolation and solitude of the countries he had visited, he had learned to appreciate the flag of his country. The star-spangled banner never appeared to him more beautiful than when the winds unrolled its folds over his tent in the desert; and he did not recollect that he ever had a prouder hour than when he entered, with a party of his countrymen, into the ancient city of Damascus, which existed in the days of Abraham, and which yet constitutes the beau ideal of an eastern city, as painted in the Arabian tales, preceded by the flag of his country, which attracted the gaze of the wondering Moslems. "If there is a dissatisfied American," says he, "I trust I need not say that I do not allude to our comparatively little internal differences of policy, but to the great principles of our government, and their practical operation-let him examine the condition of other nations, and, if he does not return a better citizen and a more contented man, I will agree to forfeit all claim to the gift of divination. This love of country is a mysterious sentiment. Dormant under ordinary circumstances, it is awakened and becomes intense as we recede from our own shores, till, when half the globe is interposed between the pilgrim and his home, the love of that home is the absorbing passion of his existence."

CHAPTER XXIV.

General Cass resumes his Official Duties-His Position at Court-Intimacy with the King-Jealousy of England-His Memoranda relative to Louis Phillippe, his Court and Government-The Reasons for Publication-Charges made against General Cass Examined-Their Refutation.

General Cass returned to France with improved health and vigor. Valuable as his journey had been to himself personally, in improving his health and increasing his stock of general· information, he also had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the defects and faults of the consular system of the United States, and with their commercial and diplomatic interest in those remote countries. He communicated the result of this tour to the Department of State, disclosing many important improvements, and some day they may be instrumental in the foundation of a new theory of trade and intercourse with the decaying and decayed nations he visited.

Every minister at a foreign court performs a duty of no slight import to his country, in endeavoring, in all ways fit and honorable, to excite towards himself the personal good will and esteem of the government to which he is accredited, and of the people where he resides. It tends to give him influence and power personally, and attaches more consideration to his diplomacy. Such always has been the aim of every prudent and sagacious ambassador of all civilized countries, and such is invariably the rule of conduct suggested in the official instructions. And especially so had been the policy pursued by American ministers at the court of St. Cloud. It was this far more than any other known efficient means, that enabled Franklin and his colleagues to get the ear of Louis XVIth. Jefferson, if his own recollections are to be credited, had the entree at the French court, and was on the most intimate terms of social, unofficial intercourse with the sovereign and family, and his own country has had the benefit of it.

Louis Phillippe was not a stranger to the United States or their institutions. He had in other days, as an exile from his beloved France, wandered in many climes, mingled with the people, and