394 PTOLEMETA TO MERGE.

by him a token of our regard to our old friend Hashi, the Bey’s secretary.

We have already said that the water of Merge is collected in pools in different parts of the valley ; and we soon found that in exchanging that of the wells and cisterns which we had quitted for it, we had not much improved the quality of our liquor. It was soon discovered that the water we procured from the pools was not quite so clear as it might have been, and we thought we perceived a peculiar taste in it which did not seem to be its natural flavour.

A very little observation convinced us we were right; for the pools were used by the Arabs, not only for drinking, but for washing and bathing also ; and we soon found that the last-mentioned ceremonies, though not often resorted to by Arabs in general, were more particularly essential to the comfort of those at Merge, from circumstances which we would willingly conceal ; since they will scarcely be considered as perfectly in character with the highly-romantic features of the country which they inhabited.

We are not, at the same time, prepared to assert, that the causes which more peculiarly call for ablution (considered as a matter of comfort) did not actually exist in patriarchal days amidst scenes such as we have described ; and if we do not find them hinted at in the allusions to early times which are made in this age of refinement, it is only, perhaps, that too minute a detail would be inconsistent with the ideas which we wish to excite of our forefathers.

In confessing that the Arabs who washed themselves in the pools of Merge were induced to do so more frequently than they would