46

Whence comest thou?"—" From going to and fro in the earth, and
from walking up and down in it."

JOB, i. 7.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR A. K. NEWMAN AND CO.

1831.

ALIBEG THE TEMPTER.

CHAP. I.

I shut my eyes to all around me, and in fancy beheld him lying in the shade before me.

Arabian M.S.

THE last rich beams of an Arabian sun now adorned the lofty promontories, and innumerable palm-trees, which, in a few scattered parts of Yemen, decorate the vast sandy plains of that spacious and desolate continent; and irradiated each with a glowing tinge that really resembled the bright golden hues, and sapphire-coloured reflections, so often alluded to, by Eastern writers, in their fantastic descriptions of

some imaginary fairy scene.

It was one

of those supremely favoured spots, called oases, which smile even in that land of drought and sterility, near the banks of the Euphrates, where nature seemed to have lavished all her store in a momentary mood of thoughtless extravagance, as if to make atonement for her former niggardly dispensation of the bounties of Providence. On every side were scattered thick blossoms of surpassing beauty, and exhaling various odours, occasionally intermingled with fruits of divers kinds, among which, however, the date and melon were the most conspicuous-affording, doubtless, a delicious sight to the tired followers of the thirsty caravan, fresh from the torrid deserts which divide Mecca from the sumptuous capital of Egypt; and presenting, to the startled eye of an unaccustomed visitant, all the agreeable variety of objects and productions which diversify the opposite coast of Barbary. At a little distance, on one side, were situated

situated many small mounds, or eminences, of various dimensions and appearance, most of them covered with trees, and a few of them with verdure. Far beyond these, but lying in the same direction, could be discerned a loftier range of mountains, apparently fertile, whose elevated summits still blushed in the tints of the departing sunshine; while through the whole of this terrestrial paradise meandered the broad and beautiful Euphrates, visible here, to the enraptured gazer, for an incredible number of miles. At length, as this majestically-rolling torrent approached the almost-forgotten site of that once-famous city, Babylon, its course was concealed by the massy heaps of ruins among which beasts of prey, and broods of dangerous reptiles, find a suitable abiding-place, secure from the unwelcome molestation of man*. But narrow was the

"It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent

there;