United States or Guinea-Bissau ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Saba; Valley of Jordan; Mountains; Description of Lake Asphaltites; Remains of Ancient Cities in its Basin; Quality of its Waters; Apples of Sodom; Tacitus, Seetzen, Hasselquist, Chateaubriand; Width of River Jordan; Jericho-Village of Rihhah; Balsam; Fountain of Elisha; Mount of Temptation; Place of Blood; Anecdote of Sir F. Henniker; Fountain of the Apostles; Return to Jerusalem; Markets; Costume; Science; Arts; Language; Jews; Present Condition of that People.
I did not at the time pay sufficient attention to the account; but, as far as I understood, the hill was covered by sand, and the noise was produced only when people, by ascending it, put the sand in motion. The same circumstances are described in detail on the authority of Seetzen and Ehrenberg, as the cause of the sounds which have been heard by many travellers on Mount Sinai near the Red Sea.
Leaving Damascus on the 12th of December, 1805, with an Armenian guide who misled him from the first, Seetzen, having prudently provided himself with a passport from the Pasha, proceeded from village to village escorted by an armed attendant. In a narrative published in the earlier "Annales des Voyages," says the traveller,
Here, as in Hauran, the doors were of basalt." Seetzen had scarcely arrived at the village of Gerasa and enjoyed a brief rest, before he was surrounded by half a score of mounted men, who said they had come by order of the vice-governor of Hauran to arrest him.
His work on the subject is an inexhaustible treasury, which may be drawn upon in our own day with advantage. Seetzen, therefore, had much to achieve to eclipse the fame of his predecessor. He omitted no means of doing so. After publicly professing the faith of Islam, he embarked at Suez for Mecca, and hoped to enter that city disguised as a pilgrim.
"Seetzen," says M. Vivien de Saint Martin, "was the first traveller since Ludovico Barthema who visited Mecca, and before his time no European had even seen the holy city of Medina, consecrated by the tomb of the Prophet." From these remarks we gather how invaluable the trustworthy narrative of this disinterested and well-informed traveller would have been.
At the beginning of this volume we spoke of the explorations and archæological and historical researches of Seetzen and Burckhardt in Syria and Palestine. We have still to say a few words on an expedition the results of which were entirely geographical. We refer to the journey of the Bavarian naturalist Heinrich Schubert.
"It is difficult to conjecture," says Seetzen, "how this town, which was formerly so celebrated, has hitherto escaped the attention of antiquarians. It is situated in an open plain, which is fertile, and watered by a river. Several tombs, with fine bas-reliefs arrested my attention before I entered it; upon one of them, I remarked a Greek inscription.
Seetzen, with his insatiable thirst for discovery, could not remain long in repose, far removed from idleness though it was. In April, 1809, he finally left the capital of Egypt, and directed his course towards Suez and the peninsula of Sinai, which he resolved to explore before proceeding to Arabia.
Mahomet introduces me to the Gipsies. They call themselves Tataren. The Rhagarin or Gipsies at Boulac. Cophts. Herr Seetzen on Egyptian Gipsies. The Gipsy with the Monkey in Cairo. Street- cries of the Gipsy Women in Egypt. Captain Newbold on the Egyptian Gipsies.
Word Of The Day