British cities spread out, as it were indefinitely, into the country, in the way of parks, gardens, summer-houses, gentlemen's seats, and smiling villages. It is not so in the East. The city is within the walls, and all without is garden as at Damascus, or desert as at Jerusalem. Single houses are, in any country, the proof of the supremacy of law as well as of the respectability and independence of labour. Life and property have not attained perfect security in the East: a pistol, or rather a musket, was presented at my breast, within half a mile of Damascus, in broad daylight!

These noble gardens have no inhabitants; nor do any fine cottages, tasteful houses, or princely palaces, adorn this fertile region. Within the city you are safe; —without are dogs, insecurity of property, and the liability of being shot. The whole population, therefore, live either in cities or in villages, except in such regions as Beirout, where European influence and power prevail. There, you have gardens and single houses, much after the English fashion.