_Aug. 30._--The inhabitants are building up gates in all the principal streets, both against the swarms of thieves who plunder by night, and in anticipation of the entrance of the opposing party, when a general pillage seems now fully expected by all. It often seems to me, on looking around and seeing all without God, and trusting to their puny efforts to avert impending evils, what a blessed portion we have who know him, believe in him, and love him, and know and feel, that without his permission, not one hair of our heads shall fall. Those within the city have also again been out and attacked another tribe of Arabs that were on Ali Pasha's side, pillaged and set fire to their camp, and brought the plunder into the city, among which was a great quantity of silk, which these Arabs had taken from a caravan coming to Bagdad from Persia in the time of the plague.
_September 2._--I was sent for to-day to see the Pasha, who has, from the effects of a carbuncle on his toe lost one of the joints, and they have so treated it, that he will, I think, now certainly lose another. He was particularly kind and civil, and without any comparison, the most gentlemanly person I have met with in the East. There is an unaffected simplicity of manners, and a benevolence of countenance, which makes one wonder how all the accounts of his actions, which we may, I think, say we know to be true, could possibly be so. He made me a present of three small cucumbers, at this time the greatest rarity; and this may convey some idea to what extent the privations of the poor have gone, when the Pasha can hardly command a cucumber, which, with legumenous fruits of a similar kind, constitute a great portion of the food of the poor in ordinary times. As I returned from the Pasha a man levelled a gun at me, not with any intention to fire I believe, but just to show that independent boldness which fears no one, but dares to do what it chooses.
_September 6._--There is nothing new; but the uninterrupted stream of misery is still swelling with its bitter waters: depredation and scarcity increasing and advancing with pretty equal steps. There seems to be signs of money beginning to fail from the treasury of the Pasha, as his kanjaar (a dagger), richly studded with diamonds, was offered for sale the other day. The palace of the Pasha, or rather its ruins, are filled with Arnaouts, a mercenary band of soldiers, who employ their time in making and drinking arrack, and knocking down the walls of the palace, wherever they yield a hollow sound, in search of the hidden treasures of the Pasha. In these countries it is a universal custom to bury or build up in the walls of houses their treasures, from the insecurity in which they always live.