Page:The lives of celebrated travellers (Volume 1).djvu/314

 their part assured them that the opinion they entertained of Omar and Abubeer was in no respect better than their own; that they had no intention whatever to defile their holy places; and that their only object at present was to obtain somewhere or another a shelter from the inclemency of the weather. This apparent participation in their sectarian feelings somewhat mollified their disposition, and they at length consented to unlock the doors of the tomb, and allow the infidels to deposite their baggage in it; but with respect to themselves, it was decreed by the remorseless villagers that they were to pass the night sub Jove. When our travellers saw the door opened, however, they began secretly to laugh at the beards of the honest zealots, being resolved, as soon as sleep should have wrapped itself round these poor people like a cloak, as Sancho words it, to steal quietly into the tomb, and dream for once upon a holy grave. They did so; but either the anger of the sheïkh or their wet garments caused them to pass but a melancholy night.

Next morning, the waters of the river, which rose and fell with equal rapidity, having sunk to their ordinary level, they issued forth from their sacred apartments, and proceeding westward for some time, they at length ascended a lofty eminence, from whence, across a wide and fertile plain, they discovered the city of Latichen, founded by Seleucus Nicator on the margin of the sea. Leaving this city and the Mediterranean on the right-hand, and a high ridge of mountains on the left, they proceeded through the plain towards Gibili, the ancient Gabala, where they arrived in the evening, and remained one day to recruit themselves. In the hills near this city were found the extraordinary sect of the Nessariah, which still subsists, and are supposed to be a remnant of the ancient pagan population, worshippers of Venus-Mylitta and the sun.

Proceeding southward along the seacoast they