'I know him not much,' said Fausta, 'and of his faith, nothing. He has
great power over the Princess Julia, and it would not much amaze me if, by
and by, she declared herself a Christian. It is incredible how that
superstition spreads. But here is our carriage. Come, let us forth.'

So, breaking off our talk, we betook ourselves to the carriage. How shall
I find language, my Curtius, to set before you with the vividness of the
reality, or with any approach to it, the pictures which this drive through
and around Palmyra caused to pass successively before me? You know indeed,
generally, what the city is, from the reports of former travellers,
especially from the late book of Spurius, about which and its speculations
much was said a little while since. But let me tell you, a more one-sided,
one-eyed, malignant observer never thrust himself upon the hospitalities
of a free, open-hearted people, than that same Spurius, poet and
bibliopole. His very name is an offence to the Palmyrenes, who, whatever
national faults they may have, do not deserve the deep disgrace of being
brought before the world in the pages of so poor a thing as the said
Ventidius Spurius. Though it will not be my province to treat as an author
of the condition, policy, and prospects of Palmyra, yet to you and my
friends I shall lay myself open with the utmost freedom, and shall refrain
from no statement or opinion that shall possess, or seem to do so, truth
or importance.

The horses springing from under the whip of the charioteer, soon bore us
from the great entrance of the palace into the midst of the throng that
crowded the streets. The streets, seen now under the advantages of a warm
morning sun adding a beauty of its own to whatever it glanced upon, showed
much more brilliantly than ours of Rome. There is, in the first place, a
more general sumptuousness in equipage and dress, very striking to the eye
of a Roman. Not perhaps that more wealth is displayed, but the forms and