, which cannot be had from without; and
they say that when the plague becomes intense all the water carriers
cease to ply; but the Lord hath said, in the time of famine ye shall
be satisfied; on this promise we rest in peace.

Two English gentlemen set off to-morrow across the desert with a
single guide to Damascus, to examine the means of communication by
water between the Mediterranean and Aleppo. From thence, should they
be spared, they purpose going to Beer, and thence pass down the
Euphrates with the view of ascertaining its fitness for steam
navigation. Surveys have already been completed between this and
Bussorah, of both the Tigris and Euphrates, by Mr. Ormsby, in part
assisted by Mr. Elliot, and from Ana to Felugia by Captain Chesney
of the Royal Artillery, and there remains between Beer and Ana to
be examined. Through all that has yet been surveyed there is no
obstruction, but it is expected there will be a little labour required
in one or two points of what remains to be surveyed, before steam
communications could proceed on the rivers. If these gentlemen thus
labour for what perishes in the using, and run such risks, going as
they are across the desert with a guide, whose language they do not
understand, ought it to be called tempting God, in us going for such a
work as ours is, to run similar risks and encounter similar dangers.

The deaths at present from the plague are confined to the Mohammedans
and the Jews. To avoid it, many of the Jews have gone to Bussorah,
and the Kourds who brought it here have fled from the city; a large
caravan of Christians are now thinking of returning to Mosul, who were
driven from Mosul three or four years ago by plague and its attendant
famine.

The poor Jews have been robbed of every thing by the Arabs, and sent
naked back, and there seems little better prospect for those who are
going to Mosul: they have the Arabs on one side the road, and the
Kourds on the other.

It is striking how fully and simply the Mohammedans admit the expected
coming of our Lord and the end of the world. The end of our Lord's
coming they conceive to be to set his seal to Mohammed's mission, and
that all Christians will become Mohammedans. Still these fundamental
errors in their views do not prevent a clear and distinct expectation
similar to that of the heathen at the time of our Lord's coming.
Certainly no people can have a worse opinion of the state of the
professors of their religion than t