not a solitary camel, moved in
the vicinity.

The day was too advanced for the pilgrim to proceed, but so great was
his anxiety to reach this unknown settlement, and penetrate the mystery
of its silence, that ere sunset Alroy entered the gates.

A magnificent city, of an architecture with which he was unacquainted,
offered to his entranced vision its gorgeous ruins and deserted
splendour; long streets of palaces, with their rich line of lessening
pillars, here and there broken by some fallen shaft, vast courts
surrounded by ornate and solemn temples, and luxurious baths adorned
with rare mosaics, and yet bright with antique gilding; now an arch of
triumph, still haughty with its broken friezes; now a granite obelisk
covered with strange characters, and proudly towering over a prostrate
companion; sometimes a void and crumbling theatre, sometimes a long and
elegant aqueduct, sometimes a porphyry column, once breathing with the
heroic statue that now lies shivered at its base, all suffused with the
warm twilight of an eastern eve.

He gazed with wonder and admiration upon the strange and fascinating
scene. The more he beheld, the more his curiosity was excited. He
breathed with difficulty; he advanced with a blended feeling of
eagerness and hesitation. Fresh wonders successively unfolded
themselves. Each turn developed a new scene of still and solemn
splendour. The echo of his step filled him with awe. He looked around
him with an amazed air, a fluttering heart, and a changing countenance.
All was silent: alone the Hebrew Prince stood amid the regal creation of
the Macedonian captains. Empires and dynasties flourish and pass away;
the proud metropolis becomes a solitude, the conquering kingdom even a
desert; but Israel still remains, still a descendant of the most ancient
kings breathed amid these royal ruins, and still the eternal sun could
never rise without gilding the towers of living Jerusalem. A word, a
deed, a single day, a single man, and we might be a nation.

A shout! he turns, he is seized; four ferocious Kourdish bandits grapple
and bind him.

The bandits hurried their captive through a street which appeared to
have been the principal way of the city. Nearly at its termination,
they turned by a small Ionian temple, and, clambering over some fallen
pillars, entered a quarter of the city of a more ruinous aspect than
that which Alroy had hitherto visited. The path was narrow, often
obstructed, and around w