Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTERS FROM ALEPPO. LETTER IX. Aleppo, Jan. 14, 1831. When I wrote from Marseilles, I said it might be long ere I could write again, but I did not know it would be so long as this. We embarked from Marseilles November 4th, and after experiencing all varieties of weather landed at Larnica on the 28th. We had on board a Dr. Meryon, who was returning to visit Lady Hester Stanhope, having been her physician twelve years ago. He had with him a young wife, apparently a bride; his devotion to her and his patience were unbounded. He is well acquainted with this country, and has almost a morbid preference of it to England. He was intimate with Dr. Hawkins at school and at college, and was pleased to find that I knew him. I thought him a kind and sensible, as well as a highly educated man; but he widely differed from us as to religion. This did not affect the friendliness of his intercourse. He gave us much useful information, and did us many kind offices in the three days we stayed at Larnica. He talks French, Italian, Greek, and Arabic. We parted from him with much regret. Dr. Hawkins may like to know how he is remembered by him. On board the ship was an old Greek, who lived in another part of the hold with his cat, of which he was very fond; and I used to visit his quarter to talk Greek with him, for the sake of practice. (You may be amused to hear his judgment of my Greek dialect; he called it ‘very beautiful and very funny;’ that is, no doubt, because I am apt to mix up too much of the old Greek, which seems grandiloquent on trifling subjects.) I cannot say we struck up a friendship; but we were on chatty terms. Walking in the street at Larnica, I met a person whom I did not know, who, to my extreme surprise, fell on my neck and kissed both cheeks quite affectionately. …
