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 tents in the midst of clumps of cypress and small cedar-trees. On the following night, as soon as the moon began to silver over the waters of the Euphrates, the caravan again put itself in motion; and, descending along the course of the stream, in six days arrived at Anah, a city of the Arabs, lying on both sides of the river, whose broad surface is here dotted with numerous small islands covered with fruit-trees. They now crossed the river; and the merchants of the caravan, avoiding the safe and commodious road which lay through towns in which custom-house officers were found, struck off into a desolate and dangerous route, traversing Mesopotamia nearly in a right line, and on the 19th of October reached the banks of the Tigris, a larger and more rapid river than the Euphrates, though on this occasion Pietro thought its current less impetuous. The night before they entered Bagdad the caravan was robbed in a very dexterous manner. Their tents were pitched in the plain, the officers of the custom-house posted around to prevent smuggling; the merchants, congratulating themselves that they had already succeeded in eluding the duties almost to the extent of their desires, had fallen into the sound sleep which attends on a clear conscience; and Pietro, his domestics, and the other inmates of the caravan had followed their example. In the dead of the night the camp was entered by stealth, the tents rummaged, and considerable booty carried off. The banditti, entering Pietro's tent, and finding all asleep, opened the trunk in which were all the manuscripts, designs, and plans he had made during his travels, carefully packed up, as if for the convenience of robbers, in a small portable escrutoire; but by an instinct which was no less fortunate for them than for the traveller and posterity, since such spoil could have been of no value to them, they rejected the escrutoire, and selected all our traveller's fine linen, the very articles in which he hoped to have captivated the beauty whose eulogies had so highly in