'The Expedition for the survey of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, carried on by order of the British government, in the years 1835, 1836, and 1837; preceded by geographical and historical notices of the regions situated between the rivers Nile and Indus. In four volumes. With fourteen maps and charts, and embellished with ninety-seven plates, besides numerous wood-cuts. Volume the first.' [‎428] (511/905)

428 DAPHNE ON THE ORONTES. [CHAP. XVIII.
Population of goats'-hair, and the ordinary supplies of food. The census
Antiocb in takeii by lhr{ihim in 18 35 } of the intended capital of
the restored monarchy of Syria, gave, exclusively of about
6000 Egyptian troops, a population of 5600 souls, a large
proportion being Greeks, who are under a patriarch. Though
time and misrule have reduced the city in which the disciples
of Christ first received their distinctive appellation to the
level of an ordinary Turkish town, the natural beauties of the
environs remain. About two miles and a half south-west of
the city, in a rocky cleft shaded by a prodigious oriental plane-
Fountain of tree, is the translucent fountain of Zoiba; and near it some
Zoiba. remains of aqueducts, walls, bridges, &c., mark an ancient site,
probably that of Antigonus. About three and a half miles
farther, in the same direction, situated in an amphitheatre
amidst wild scenery of luxuriant beauty, is Beit-el-Moi'e, or
the house of water. Here the numerous fountains of ancient
Daphne burst at once from a grove of bay-trees on the side of
the hill, from whence the water passes in numerous streams
through broken ground, forming two shaded cascades, amidst
numerous islets, rocks, and petrifactions; a striking and
picturesque effect being produced, not unlike the grand view
of the second cataracts of the Nile in miniature. After
turning several mills, the stream flows onward through bay-
trees, myrtles, and oleanders, till it is lost in the wild and
rocky scenery of the Orontes; with which are mixed corn
fields, mulberry, pomegranate, and myrtle-groves, interspersed
with aromatic plants. A little lower, on the northern side.
The Kuchuk the Kuchuk Kara Chai enters the Orontes, after a tortuous
Sers^he 1 course through a bed of oleanders, between high banks thickly
Orontes. c 2 a( j w ith myrtle, arbutus, &c. At the foot of Jebel Seman,
scarcely two miles lower, is the pass of the Red Cliff, which,
by Lieut. Charlewood, R.N., one of the officers of the expe
dition, was compared to Dove-Dale, in Derbyshire; and about
two miles onward, the Buyuk-Kara-Chai enters the main
stream through a bolder and still wilder valley. Near the
head of the latter river is the singular village of Babilur, 8
1 Acts, chap, xi., last part of v. 26. s Possibly the ancient Bageas.