Having given some account of Ali's connections with an eminent Arab sheikh named Daher, who resided in St. John d'Acre, and governed the adjoining country, and appears to have been united with Ali Bey, in the design of setting their respective countries free from the Ottoman yoke, against which Arab prince, therefore, the pasha of Damascus marched, in order to defeat the design, this author tells the following story:

"The pasha of Sham found himself much harassed in his march by Sheikh Ali, the second son of Daher; and when he got near the sea of Tiberias, he found Sheikh Daher encamped there. When the sheikh beheld the enemy near enough, he deferred an engagement till the next morning; and during the night, divided his army into three bodies, one of 3000 to the East, upon the hills of Gadara, under the command of Sheikh Sleby; a second, of 3000 men also, on the West towards Mount Libanus, commanded by Sheikh Crime, his son-in-law. The third, or main body, under himself, crossed the sea of Tiberias to the South, towards Galilee, leaving the camp with great fires, all sorts of provision, and a large quantity of spirituous liquors, giving strict orders not to hinder the enemy from taking possession of the camp, but to come down and attack them just before dawn of day.

"In the middle of the night the pasha of Sham thought to surprise Sheikh Daher, and He means Damascus, or Syria.

marched in silence to the camp, which to his great astonishment, he found entirely abandoned, and thought the sheikh had fled with so much precipitation, that he could not carry off the baggage and stores. The pasha thought proper to stop in the camp to refresh his soldiers. They soon fell to plunder, and drank so freely of the liquors, that overcome with the fatigue of the day's march, and the fumes of the spirits, they were not long ere they were in a sound sleep. At that time Sheikh Sleby and Sheikh Crime, who were watching the enemy, came silently to the camp; and Sheikh Daher, having repassed the sea of Tiberias, meeting them, they all rushed into the camp, and fell on the confused and sleeping enemy, 8000 of whom they slew on the spot; and the pasha, with the remainder of his troops, fled, with much difficulty, to Sham, leaving all their baggage behind." To this should be added, that the pasha had 25,000 men, and that Daher's scarcely exceeded 9000.

d

The camp of the ancient Syrians was left in much the same situation with Daher's, and Joram was afraid of the same fatal design: only we read of fires in the one case, and in the other of their beasts of burden being left tied behind them. The small quantity of Arab luggage, commonly made use by that alert nation, might well occasion no suspicion in the Turkish Pasha, as to the want of the last of these two circumstances; the difference as to the fires 4 P. 99, 100, 101.

might arise from the different season of the year. No doubt, but that Daher gave all the probability he could to the artifice he made use of, and which succeeded so well.

OBSERVATION LXVII.

Curious Illustration of Joel iii. 3.

MORGAN, in his History of Algiers, gives us such an account of the unfortunate expedition of the Emperor Charles the Fifth against that city, so far resembling a passage of the Prophet Joel, as to induce me to transcribe it into these papers.

That authors tells us, that besides vast multitudes that were butchered by the Moors and the Arabs, a great number were made captives, mostly by the Turks and citizens of Algiers; and some of them, in order to turn this misfortune into a most bitter taunting and contemptuous jest, parted with their new-made slaves for an onion apiece. "Often have I heard," says he, "Turks and Africans upbraiding Europeans with this disaster, saying, scornfully, to such as have seemed to hold their heads somewhat loftily, "What! have you forgot the time, when a Christian, at Algiers, was scarce worth an onion ?"

The treatment of the Jewish people by the heathen nations, which the Prophet Joel has

P. 305.

described, was, in like manner, contemptuous and bitterly sarcastic, They have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink, Joel iii. 3.

They that know the large sums that are wont to be paid, in the East, for young slaves of either sex, must be sensible, that the Prophet designs, in these words, to point out the extreme contempt in which these heathen nations held the Jewish people.

OBSERVATION LXVIII.

Stopping up the Wells, an Act of Hostility in the East.

THERE is no difficulty in comprehending the account that is given, in the book of Genesis, of the filling up the wells Abraham had dug, and which Isaac was obliged to open again; but it may seem extraordinary to us, that men should be disposed to do mischief of this kind; it may therefore be amusing just to observe, that the same mode of taking vengeance on those that were disagreeable to them, or whom they would prevent from coming among them, has been put in practice many ages since.

Niebuhr, in his account of Arabia, tells us, in one place, that the Turkish emperors pretend to a right to that part of Arabia, that lies between Mecca and the countries of Syria and f Gen. xxvi. 15, 18.

P. 302.

1

Egypt, but that their power amounts to very little. That they have however garrisons in divers little citadels, built in that desert, near the wells that are made on the road from Egypt and Syria to Mecca, which are intended for the greater safety of their caravans. But in a following page he gives us to understand, that these princes have made it a custom, to give annually to all the Arab tribes which are near that road, a certain sum of money, and a certain number of vestments, to keep them from destroying the wells that lie in that route, and to escort the pilgrims across their country.

They are apprehensive then, that if the Arabs should be affronted, and be disposed to do mischief, they might fill up those wells, which have been made for the benefit of their numerous caravans of pilgrims, and are of such consequence to their getting through that mighty desert.

It is true indeed that they have not always taken this step. The commander of the caravan of the Syrian pilgrims, not long ago, Niebuhr thinks in the year 1756, instead of paying the sheikhs of the tribe of Harb, (one of the principal of their tribes on this road,) who had come to receive the accustomed presents, cut off their heads, which he sent to Constantinople, as trophies of his victory. This year then the caravans went in triumph to Mecca, and returned without being disturbed by the Arabs. They did the same the next year. But the

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