The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-04 00:00:00

THE ROB ROY IN SYRIA.

The Times publishes a letter from "Rob Roy" (I°,;
Macgregor), whose voyages in the " Rob Roy Canoe „,
have been so remarkable. Mr. Macgregor is now in SYr;
He sends an interesting account of his voyage ne tbe
Abana river and round the district. "All this regin°,%o
writes, " though so near Damascus, is unkliclta
,i
and unsafe. I had to take two soldiers, 01°11nflo
well, but wretchedly armed, for the eleven `4ro
spent in these excursions, and the newsP°Peie
the(A rabic) here and at Beyrout are about to chronicr
discoveries made in their territory by a foreig°,l;
which may be briefly summed up as follows :-1.
to
Abana has three months, but the largest is not Ile
Harran (as in Vandevelde's excellent map), but
Haush Hammar. These flow into a marsh
has no outlet. It is wrongly called a lake, for in
Lan
part Is there a hundred yards of open water; t.;
seasons. 2. The Pharpar has two mouths, but the in rt
is the southern one, to the south of Kasrein (ani."--t°B
north, as in Vandevelde). These both fall into I.'"zo
Hijarieh, which is rightly called a lake, with an nver:;'
of five feet of depth, plenty of open water, and an °'-'1;
flow into another lake (Asyah Hasweh ; not Bala, In
Vandevelde). Also the lake Matkh Brak is cii"
a marsh, and the river Khuneifis was Perfe,egret-
dry when I crossed its bed twice in a short eri,vh
sion to the first of the ' giant cities,' Brak.
wonderful `stone town' can no longer be regarded oa
uninhabited. An Arab has come to it from AlepP° 1:136
gathered 109 people round him, who now occupyancient dwellings so long tenantless. In a few years rewht
the houses will be plastered, and the sentiment of the etb
will be destroyed. Being in light marching order, Iy.,
only saddlebags, I put up in this Sheikh's house. AOOl
entered the yard through a gate with a stone
still turning on its hinges as it may have done 0
the days of Abraham. I slept in a room with e.llts
rafters each 10ft long, and a window having f°rhjsb
shutter one slab of stone. I here read of the
elections, and of Mr. Bright as a Cabinet Minister.
was indeed a strange sensation when I closed this
for the night, and the heavy slab turned easily by a Piiie
from one of my fingers. Mr. Rogers has sent is°-atit
British Museum one of these extraordinary slab doors, P'll:,fl
six inches in thickness ; also a copy of the inscription °'"a
stone in this particular house, which is in Greek, 3•
dated, I believe, more than 2,000 years ago, I vie3e,l*-;io
number of villages in the plain Of Damascus. The 9,eley
there are handsome ; many of them are tattooed. 'as
wear very brilliant colours, chiefly red (as in Egypt
sees always blue), and long red boots turned LIP at"pci
ends. They are strong, healthy, good-humoured, "
erg
intelligent. Their houses are of mud, but I1(4 'goers
dirty. They ran in crowds along the rivers while
canoe passed, but when it was on shore (and wraPPe'-..,,a
carpets) it was constantly supposed to be a coffin' -vet
several times the women shrieked as I took off the c°
~;,c1
and launched the boat. Blessed with fine weather; 'l4
perfect health, I have enjoyed this canoe voyage in ',drib°
and Egypt to the highest degree, and once more eve;iotpo
spurs of Hermon, which is now all white in snow, '.0.-(1
to launch the Rob Roy on Lake Hulen and then cielsc-D
the sacred Jordan."

-
'Oll
For an example to its readers, a North u 3)„ 11
•
paper announces that the Speaker of the North Car°lilio
house of Representatives "has Leen sober all the sessll2-n-.
A correspondent writing to the Indo-P111)5
states;,,
correspondence from Monghyr, under date the 210 t
that " a very serious accident, brought about 1-038
manner unknown and perhaps unheard of since ,1 11.
establishment of railways, not only in India, but thOilif•
out the world, happened to a train last evening st
past eight p.m., between Sahebgunge and Illirzapore, 5.,,,;c0' 3
two miles from the latter station. At that time tile 'hie!)
down goods train was approaching a mangoe tope, ill ':,:;110
some seventy elephants were stationed. The red
glaring in the distance, and the noise and smoke '9`..,,tp
engine would seem to have caused an awful CO
tion among the poor brutes, all of whom more 19-ilr
tried to break away from their fastenings. 00e the
male, however, the strongest and most courageollg and
lot, became so infuriated that he broke his Cl'
rushed forward to intercept and encounter the sl1Pr:01
enemy. He had scarcely placed himself on the lille
the train was down upon him. He encountered
it
head and tusks ; but animal strength proved jrileeel
for steam and machinery--the poor brute was Itn°,l-i
down and killed on the spot, and the engine, rebelln-izijecl
ran off the line, and it and eleven carriages were CA ill
into a ditch. The fireman luckily managed to Jun' drivers
time, and the guard did the same ; but the Poor trial
named Smith, remained in his place, and received ii3J"
from which it 41 not expected ke wild