would be very
thankful; yet perhaps in this I deceive myself, and all my gratitude
would be as a morning cloud. However, this I know, the Lord will not
suffer me to be tried above what he will enable me to bear, and on
this assurance, in the darkest day, may the blessed Spirit enable my
heart to repose. This is my daily comfort.

_Sept. 12._ _Monday._--The poor are again permitted to leave the city,
and it is reported, that when Ali Pasha heard that those had been
robbed who came out before, he threw some of the supposed plunderers
into the river, and cut off the heads of others. However this may be,
5 or 600 now daily go out and suffer no molestation. This is a great
mercy, for within the city every article of food has disappeared
except buffaloes' and camels' flesh, and this at about twenty times
its usual price. Should this state of things continue, it seems to
me from present appearances, that a general plunder will be the
consequence. To-day they have pillaged the houses of some Jews.
Yesterday they broke open the house of Major Taylor's chaoush. They
are very slow to interfere with those under English protection; but
when their natural thievish propensities are stimulated by want and
opportunity, from what may they be expected to withhold themselves?

Things within the city are now come to that pass, that I heard from
the Meidan to-day (the place where the principal Turks reside) that
they have determined to wait five days more, and if Ajeel, the Sheikh
of the Montefeik Arabs, or some other efficient aid, does not arrive,
they will cut off the heads of Daoud Pasha and Saleh Beg, who is his
Kaimacam, or Lieutenant Governor, and send them to Ali Pasha, for the
city can bear no more.

When I consider all the misery in the city, and the privations not
only among the poor, but the rich, and consider how we have been
provided for, it does seem to me most marvellous, strangers as we
were, and without a friend. Before the plague, in our ignorance of the
probable time of its continuance, and with the certain knowledge that
in the midst of the greatest want, there was not a soul that could
help us, we took in enough of wheat, rice, soap, and candles, to last
till within a very few weeks. When dear Mr. Pfander left us, we made
him some sausages, called in this country _pastourma_: he, however,
took but a few, and the rest remained with us, and served us both
during the plague, and now in the famine to vary our food a litt