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. Its principal thoroughfare from Jaffa to Jerusalem is impracticable to anything but a horse or a mule; the road no better than the dry bed of a mountain torrent, filled with stones, from the size of one's head to the size of one's horse.

The curse entailded upon the country is also entailed upon the government; there is no healthy vigour existing in the body politic, the Turkish constitution is undermined, and consumption is rapidly reducing it to a skeleton. Bribery and corruption have supplanted honour and integrity; brigandism prevails up to the gates of its walled towns; her laws and institutions are mere dead letters; her officials have lost all amour propre, all the esprit de corps of patriots; and, provided they can have their pipe, their coffee, their Buck-shees and their hareem, they are indifferent about the welfare of their nation. Syria, under the above circumstances, is not a desirable resort for invalids from India.