The nearer we approached the
more ruined it appeared. The walls were half fallen, the streets
and squares full of heaps of rubbish, and many of the houses were in
ruins; it seemed as if a pestilence or an enemy had destroyed it.
At last I asked its name, and could hardly believe that I had
understood it rightly when I was told that it was Tebris.
My guide conducted me to the house of Mr. Stevens, the English
consul, who, to my vexation, was not in the town, but ten miles away
in the country. A servant, however, told me that he would go
directly to a gentleman who could speak English. In a very short
time he came, and his first questions were: "How did you come here,
_alone_? Have you been robbed? Have you parted from your company
and only left them in the town?" But when I gave him my pass, and
explained everything to him, he appeared scarcely to believe me. He
thought it bordered upon the fabulous that a woman should have
succeeded, without any knowledge of the language, in penetrating
through such countries and such people.
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