arantine for five days, because a Turkish Bey, who lives
near Baias, entered the gates without being noticed, and was found in the
bazaars. The Quarantine building was once a palace of the Pashas of Adana,
but is now in a half-ruined condition. The rooms are large and airy, and
there is a spacious open divan which affords ample shade and a cool
breeze throughout the whole day. Fortunately for us, there were only three
persons in Quarantine, who occupied a room distant from ours. The
Inspector was a very obliging person, and procured us a table and two
chairs. The only table to be had in the whole place--a town of 15,000
inhabitants--belonged to an Italian merchant, who kindly gave it for our
use. We employed a messenger to purchase provisions in the bazaars; and
our days passed quietly in writing, smoking, and gazing indolently from
our windows upon the flowery plains beyond the town. Our nights, however,
were tormented by small white gnats, which stung us unmercifully. The
physician of Quarantine, Dr. Spagnolo, is a Venetian refugee, and formerly
editor of _La Lega Italiana_, a paper published in Venice during the
revolution. He informed us that, except the Princess Belgioioso, who
passed through Adana on her way to Jerusalem, we were the only travellers
he had seen for eleven months.

After three days and four nights of grateful, because involuntary,
indolence, Dr. Spagnolo gave us _pratique_, and we lost no time in getting
under weigh again. We were the only occupants of Quarantine; and as we
moved out of the portal of the old serai, at sunrise, no one was guarding
it. The Inspector and Mustapha, the messenger, took their back-sheeshes
with silent gratitude. The plain on the west side of the town is well
cultivated; and as we rode along towards Tarsus, I was charmed with the
rich pastoral air of the scenery. It was like one of the midland
landscapes of England, bathed in Southern sunshine. The beautiful level,
stretching away to the mountains, stood golden with the fields of wheat
which the reapers were cutting. It was no longer bare, but dotted with
orange groves, clumps of holly, and a number of magnificent
terebinth-trees, whose dark, rounded masses of foliage remind one of the
Northern oak. Cattle were grazing in the stubble, and horses, almost
buried under loads of fresh grass, met us as they passed to the city. The
sheaves were drawn to the threshing-floor on sleds, and we could see the
husbandmen in the distanc