XXIX.

Extract from a Diary of a Journey over the Great Desart, from Aleppo to Bussora, in April 1782. Communicated by Sir William Dunkin, and published with a view to direct the attention of future Travellers to the Ruins described in it.

APRIL 16.

ET off at five in the morning; encamped at five in

SET

the evening; the day intensely hot; the soil in general sandy; some few shrubs and bushes, but now quite brown, and so dry, that with the least touch they fall to powder; many stalks of lavender and rosemary; and in very dry red sand several scarlet tulips; other sorts new to me, one of a singular kind, in colour and smell like a yellow lupin, but in figure like the cone of a fir-tree, from ten to twelve inches long.

AFTER about two hours in this sort of country, the ground appeared more verdant and firm; we then came to some very extraordinary ruins our Shaikh had seen, but never had approached them before; we prevailed on him; he called the place Castrohuoin; another Arab called it Calmay; our Armenians who interpreted for us in very bad Italian, called it Castro duo fratilli (I try to give the names from their mode of pronouncing); what we first saw was a square, each side about 400 yards along. The walls forty feet

high, yet entire in many places; at each angle there is a circular tower, two others in each of the sides; they rise much higher than the walls; the towers and the walls constructed with very large blocks of cut stone. To what use the hollow of the square had been applied, I could form no conjecture; in it immense blocks of cut stone, and segments of arches of different dimensions, tumbled together in monstrous heaps; near to the gateway by which we entered, two arches remain perfect, a third nearly so; they were probably carried all along the inside of (but distinct at least twenty feet from) the wall. These arches spring from very slender pillars, each pillar a single shaft; the arches are nearly semicircular, of the same beautiful white stone as the pillars. About a quarter of a mile from this square there is another, which appears to be a fourth part less; the entrance into this is under the loftiest as well as the widest arch of stone I ever saw I had no means of measuring, which I much regretted: I cannot draw, which I regretted much more. The proportions of the pillars, and of the arch which they support, conveyed to me something more just and beautiful than I can describe. The inside of the arch is richly ornamented with sculpture; at the sides there are niches, I suppose, for statues; the outer face of the building is composed of great blocks of stone as the greater square; and in many places yet entire, appear to be as well chisseled and jointed as the best constructed marble building I ever saw, even at Venice. The height of the wall seems to be equal to that of the greater square; the thickness, which from some VOL. IV.

3 H

breaches

breaches quite through may be observed, from seven to eight feet, all through of the same stone, with little, if any, cement: the number and disposition of the towers the same as in the other; but in this, where the towers rise above the wall, they are more ornamented; two circles or bands of sculpture at equal distances appear relieved from the body of each tower; but as all the tops are broken off, I could not guess how they had been closed. The sculpture on the inside of the great arch of entrance, and on many of the fragments of prostrated pillars, appear like those in Mr. Wood's plates of the ruins of Palmyra. Over the entrance-arch on the inside, are some remains of an inscription in Arabic; but so defaced, that our Shaikh, who reads and writes Arabic, could not make out one word. All along the inside of this square, arches formed of the finest brick are constructed; they project from the wall about thirty feet, and are about twenty feet high over the arches ; and close up to the wall is a platform of earth perfectly level, and now covered with rich and verdant herbage. No vestige of buildings appear in the hollow of this square, but many fragments of pillars lie in ruins; some are of brick, and so cemented, that it must be as difficult to separate their parts as if they were solid blocks of stone. There are no openings in the walls from which any thing could have been discharged; in the towers there are openings, at regular distances, which seem to have been designed to admit light only; not for any hostile purpose. Equidistant from each of the squares is a building of the same sort of stone, about fifteen

feet

feet square; though it appears to have been much higher, it is still considerably more lofty than the other buildings; the stairs by which this was ascended appear perfect from about twelve feet above the ground; what were lower, now a heap of rubbish; there does not remain the appearance of any communication between this and the other buildings; all the interjacent ground is level and now verdant; no stream or well appears nearer than the one we stopt at yesterday, about six hours from hence. If this district could be supplied with water, it would be rich indeed; for several miles onward we thought we discovered the remains of trenches or cuts for the conducting of water over the plain. The Arabs were entirely ignorant respecting these extraordinary buildings; when, or by whom erected, or when destroyed. The Shaikh hurried us away, very much dissatisfied that we had lost so much time; he swears he never will come near it again the distance from Aleppo is six days easy journey. The Shaikh says that we are now about forty miles from Palmyra, which is on our right, and about fifty from the Euphrates, on our left. No person at Aleppo gave me any hint of such a place. The gentlemen of our factory at Bussora had never heard of it,

XXX.

PROSOPIS ACULEATA. KOENIG.

Tshamie of the Hindus in the Northern Circars.

BY DOCTOR ROXBURGH.

grows to be a pretty large tree, is a native of most parts of the coast, chiefly of low lands at a considerable distance from the sea, and may be only a variety of P. Spicigera, for the thorns are in this sometimes wanting; flowers during the cold, and beginning of the hot seasons.

Trunk tolerably erect, bark deeply cracked, dirty ash colour.

Branches irregular, very numerous, forming a pretty large shady head.

Prickles scattered over the small branches; in some trees wanting.

Leaves alternate, generally bipinnate, from two to three inches long; pinnæ from one to four, when in pairs opposite, and have a gland between their

insertions.

Leaflets opposite, from seven to ten pair, obliquely lanced, smooth, entire, about half an inch long, and one-sixth broad.

Stipules none.

Spikes several, axillary, filiform, nearly erect.