THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA.

BY

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS,

AUTHOR OF "NILE NOTES."

"I am a part of all that I have met,

Yet all Experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades

Forever and forever, when I move."

TENNYSON.

"Gottes ist der Orient,

Gottes ist der Occident,

Nord-und südliches Gelände

Ruht im Frieden seiner Hände."

GOETHE.

NEW YORK:

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,

Nos. 329 AND 331 PEARL STREET,

(FRANKLIN SQUARE.)

1852.

ها

524273

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852,

BY HARPER & BROTHERS,

In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York.

MY DEAR FRIEND,—

To the Pacha.

In making you the Pacha of two tales, I confess with the Syrians, that a friend is fairer than the roses of Damascus, and more costly than the pearls of Omman.

You, of all men, will not be surprised by these pages, for you shared with me the fascination of novelty in those eldest lands, which interpreted to us both that pleasant story of Raphael.

When his friend, Marc Antonio, discovered him engaged upon the Sistine picture and exclaimed,

-"Cospetto! another Madonna ?"

Raphael gravely answered,

"Amico mio, my friend, were all artists to paint her portrait forever, they could never exhaust her beauty."

NEW YORK, March, 1852.