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violent contraction of the joints, and appear in the most de crepid state after the immediate danger of the fever has subsided. Various parts of Asia Minor, of Egypt, Greece, and Italy, experience only the short period of their winter as a seasop of health. During summer, a visit to the islands in the south of the Archipelago, (especially to the island of Milo,) to the gulphs of Smyrna, Salonichi, and Athens, is as a passage to the grave; and over almost all the shores of the Black Sea, and the sea of Azof, it is impossible to escape the consequen ces of bad air, without the most rigorous abstinence. In those countries, swarms of venomous insects, by the torments they inflict, warn mankind to avoid the deadly atmosphere. No idea can be given, from mere verbal description, of the appearance they present. The noise made by them is louder than can be imagined; and when joined to the clamorous whooping of millions of toads, (such as the inhabitants of northern countries are happy never to have heard,) silence, the ordinary characteristic of solitude, is so completely annihilated, that the few unfortunate beings occasionally found in those fearful_regious are strangers to its influence.

The external view of Acre, like that of any other town in the Levant, is the only prospect of it worth beholding. The sight of the interior exactly resembles what is seen in Constantinople, and in the generality of Turkish cities: narrow dirty lanes, with wretched shops, and as wretched inhabitants. Yet some of the early travellers speak of its pristine splendor, and of the magnificent buildings by which it was once adorned.* In the discordant accounts that have been published concerning its present state, some describe it as interesting in the spectacle afforded by remains of former grandeur; while others relate, that the Saracens, after the final expulsion of the Christians, left not one stone upon another. It is a very common error to suppose every thing barbarous on the part of the Mahometans, and to attribute to the Christians, in that period, more refinement than they really possessed. A due attention to history may show, that the Saracens, as they were called, were in fact more enlightened than their invaders; nor is there any evidence for believing they ever delighted in works of destruction. Whatsoever degree of severity they might exercise toward their invaders, the provocation they had received was unex ampled. The treachery and shameful conduct of the Chris#Vid. Theatrum Terræ Sanctæ Christian. Adrichomii. Colon. 1628. p. 6.

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tians, during their wars in the Holy Land, have seldom been surpassed. Every treaty was violated; and the most disho nourable practices were said to be justified by the interests of religion. Acre, during almost two centuries, was the principal theatre of the crusades, and it had been long memorable on account of perfidies committed there by men who styled themselves its heroes. The history of their enormities we derive from their own historians: nor is it possible to imagine what the tale would be, if an Arabic writer were presented to us, with the Mahometan records of those times.* After a most solemn covenant of truce, guarantied, on the part of the Christians, by every consecrated pledge of honour and religion, they massacred, in one day, nineteen of the principal Saracen mer. chants; who, upon the faith of the treaty, resorted to Acre for commercial purposes. And this, although it led to the downfall of the place, was but a specimen of transactions that bad passed upon many a former occasion. Fuller, describing the state of the garrison previous to its last siege, gives us the fol lowing animated picture of its condition: "In it," says hell "were some of all countreys; so that he who had lost his na tion, might find it here. Most of them had several courts to decide their causes in; and the plentie of judges caused the scarcite of justice, malefactours appealing to a triall in the courts of their own countrey. It was sufficient innocencie for any offender in the Venetian court, that he was a Venetian. Personal acts were entituled nationall, and made the cause of the countrey. Outrages were every where practised, nowhere

A manuscript, which the author brought to England, of "Sheikabbeddin's history of the reigns of Noureddin and Salaheddin," commonly called Saladine, now deposited in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, might possibly afford information of this nature. Marin. Sanut. lib. iii. pars xii. c. 21.

Sultan Serapha, indignant at this outrage, laid siege to Acre, with an army of 100,000 infantry, and 60,000 cavalry, and took the city, A. D. 1291. This event took place upon the fifth of April, during so great a tempest, that the fugitives from the garrison, unable to reach the ships in the bay, perished in the waves. The spirited description of the confusion and slaughter that ensued upon the capture of the city, together with the moral reflections of its author, preserved in the "Gesta Dei per Francos," (Hanov. 1611.) are well worthy of notice. "Undique erat tremor, et pavor, et gemitus mortis. Soldanus quoque ad quatuor partes civitatis fecit ignes accendi, ut ferro et igne consumeret universa. Nunc luit peccata, sed non abluit civitas scelerata, gratiis divinis ingrata. Ad ipsam confluebant reges et principes terre; ad ipsam mittebant succursum tributariae cunctae partes occiduae; et nunc contra eam pugnant omnia elementa. Terra enim ejus sanguinem devorat quae Christiano sanguine tota madescit; mare absorbet populum; aedificia consumit ignis; aër fumo, et caligine tenebratur." Marin. Sanut. Secret. Fidel. Cruc. lib. iii. pars xii. cap. 21.

Historie of the Holy Warre, Camb. 1651. Fuller thus quaintly describes the preparations made in Acre to sustain the siege. "And now Piolemai's being to wrestle her last fall, stripped herself of all cumbersome clothes: women, children, aged persons, weak folks (all such hindering help, and mouthes without arms) were sent away, and twelve thousand remained, conceived competent to make good the place." Book iv. c. 33. Historie of the Holy Warre, b. iv. c. 32.

punished." If, upon the capture of the city, every building belonging to the Christians had been levelled with the earth, it is not more than might be expected in this enlightened age, from the retributive spirit of a victorious army, whose feelings have been similarly outraged. Fuller, indeed, asserts, that the conquerors, upon that occasion, "evened all to the ground, and (lest the Christians should ever after land here) demolished all buildings." But the same author, upon the testimony of Sandys, afterward insinuates his own doubt as to the matter of fact. "Some say," observes Fuller, speaking of the conduct of the sultan," he plowed the ground whereon the citie stood, and sowed it with corn: but an eye-witnesse* affirmeth that there remain magnificent ruines." The present view of Acre vouches for the accuracy of Sandys. The remains of a very considerable edifice exhibit a conspicuous appearance among the buildings upon the left of the mosque, toward the north side of the city. In this structure, the style of architecture is of the kind we call Gothic. Perhaps it has on that account borne, among our countrymen, the appellation of "King Richard's Palace;" although, in the period to which the tradition. refers, the English were hardly capable of erecting palaces, or any other buildings of equal magnificence. Two lofty arches, and part of the cornice, are all that now remain, to attest the former greatness of the superstructure. The cornice, ornamented with enormous stone busts, exhibiting a series of hideous distorted countenances, whose features are in no instancès alike, may either have served as allusions to the decapitation of St. John, or were intended for a representation of the heads of Saracens, suspended as trophies upon the walls. But there are other ruins in Acre, an account of which was published in the middle of the seventeenth century, by a French traveller; whereby it will appear, that many edifices escaped the ravages of the Saracens, far surpassing all that Sandys has described, or Fuller believed to have existed. A reference to this work will be here necessary, as many of the remains there mentioned escaped the observation of our party, notwithstanding a very diligent inquiry after the antiquities of the place; and nothing can be more lamentably deficient than the accounts given of *Sandys, p. 204. London, 1637.

"There are," says Sandys, "the ruines of a palace, which yet doth acknowledge King Richard for the founder: confirmed likenise by the passant lyon." This last ob servation may refer the origin of the building to the Genoese, who assisted Baldwin in the capture of Acre, A. D. 1104, and had buildings and other immunities assigned them;" the lion being a symbol of Genoa.

Voyage de la Terre Sainte, fait l'an 1652, par M. I, Doubdan. Paris, 1657

Acre by the different travellers who have visited this part of Palæstine, or have alluded to it in their writings.* Of those published in our language, Maundrell's and Pococke's are the best. The former of these respectable authors was, probably, no stranger to the work I have cited, if he did not borrow his own description of the antiquities of Acre from the account there given.‡ Both of these writers consider the building, commonly called King Richard's Palace, as the Church of St. Andrew. Perhaps it was that of St. John the Baptist, erected by the Knights of Jerusalem, whence the city changed its name of Ptolemaïs for that of St. John d'Acre.§ Lusignan, author of the History of the Revolt of Ali Bey, speaks of parts of the ancient city, as built by the Knights of St. John.** The strange ornament of a human head with distorted features, as represented in the cornice of the building, seems rather to confirm this opinion; since it is after a similar manner that we see the head of St. John barbarously delineated in those rude paintings used as idols in the Greek church. Doubdan des cribes this building as exhibiting traces of a style of architecture which we may perhaps consider, in some degree, the origi nal of our ornamented Gothic, before its translation from the Holy Land to Italy, to France, and to England. A similar circumstance has been already noticed in the account of the Isle of Cyprus; and there are others in different parts of Palæstine. The rest of the ruins in Acre are those of the Arse

*See, for example, the works of Lithgow, Sandys, Egmont and Heyman, Paul Lucas, Shaw, Baron de Tott, Perry, &c. Among the accounts given of Acre by these writers, that of Paul Lucas is truly ludicrous. Arriving there, he proceeds to describe the city and excites our expectation by this marginal note, "Description de selle ville." When the reader seeks the promised information, he finds only these words, S. Jean d'Acre est aujourd'hui assez peuplé." See Voy. de Sieur P. Lucas, liv, iii. om. i p. 370 Amst. 1744.

Journ. from Aleppo to Jerusalem, p. 52. Oxford, 1721.

Doubdan performed his journey in 1652, and published the account of it at Paris, in quarto, A. D. 1657. Maundrell's journey took place at Easter, 1697; and his work appeared at Oxford, in 1703. It is from the similarity of the following passages that the author has ventured a remark concerning their common origin. They are both describing the ruins of Acre. Les ruines de la ville sont très grandes, les premiers desquelles sont celles de l'Eglise de Saint André, qui est sur une éminence proche de la mer." The same subject is thus introduced by Maundrell: "Within the walls there still appear several ruins..... as first, those of the cathedral church, dedicated to St. Andrew, which stands not far from the sea-side, more high and conspicuous than the other ruins,"

The Greek name of this place, according to Strabo, (p. 1077. ed. Oxon.) was Ace. Its Hebrew appellation was Accho. (See Judges, i, 131) St. Jerom says, that it had Inore anciently the name of Coth; (see also Adrichomii Theat. Terræ Sanctæ, p. 6.) a singular circumstance, considering that the Goths, or Geta, previous to their passage of the Hellespont, were from this country. Being augmented by Ptolemy the First, Ace was from him called Plolemaïs.

The second edition was printed in London in 1784. I have not seen the first. **Revolt of Ali Bey, p. 177.

Enjolivcs de mille moulures Moresques, et autres ornemens d'architecture.

nal, of the College of the Knights, the Palace and Chapel of the Grand Master, and often or twelve other churches; but they are now so intermingled with other buildings, and in such an utter state of subversion, that it is very difficult to afford any satisfactory description.* Many superb remains were observed by us in the pacha's palace, in the khan, the mosque, the pubFic bath, the fountains, and other works of the town; consisting of fragments of antique marble, the shafts and capitals of granite and marble pillars, masses of the verd antique breccia, of ancient serpentine, and of the syenite and trap of Egypt. In the garden of Djezzar's palace, leading to his summer apartment, we saw some pillars of yellow variegated marble, of extraordinary beauty; but these he informed us he had procured from the ruins of Cæsarea, upon the coast between Acre and 'Jaffa,† together with almost all the marble used in the decorations of his very sumptuous mosque. A beautiful fountain of white marble, close to the entrance of his palace, has also been constructed with materials from those ruins.

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We were, as usual, diligent in our inquiries, among the silversmiths of Acre, for medals and antique gems; but could neither obtain nor hear of any. The most ancient name of the eity, AKH, has heen observed upon small bronze medals found in this country, but they are extremely rare; and as it was annexed to the government of Sidon, in the earliest periods of its history, perhaps no silver coinage of Acc ever existed. the bronze medals are not found in our English cabinets. The Sidonian medals, although better known, are not common, There is one, of matchless beauty and perfection, in the Imperial Collection at Paris. Those of Ptolemai's have only been observed in bronze: they exhibit the bearded head of Jupiter crowned with laurels, and, for reverse, a figure of CeYes, with the legend

ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΣΙΕΡΑ ΣΚΑΙΑ ΣΥΛΟΥ

The author of the Voyage de la Terre Sainte enters into some detail concerning Every one of these ruins. According to him, three of the churches were originally dedicated to St. Saba, St. Thomas, and St. Nicholas: there was also another church dedicated to St. John. (See Voy. de la T. S. p 597) In the magnificent edition of the account of the Holy Land by Christian. Adrichomius, printed at Cologne in 1629, we have the following enumeration of public edifices in Acre, when the city was an episcopal see, under the archbishop of Tyre. "Insigne hic fuit templum S. Črucis, et alterum S. Subbae, atque hospitale dominorum Teutonicorum. Nec non munitissima castra et turres, inter quas illa, quam maledictam appellant, excellebat. Edes tum publicae.tum privatae, magnificae atque pulcherrimae." Adrichomii Theatrum Terræ Sanctæ, p. 6.

Colon. 1628.

The ruins of Cæsarea are about fifteen or twenty miles to the south of the pot of the promontory of Mount Carmel.

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