the arm so tight as to stop the circulation, and sometimes to induce gangrene.

In the cure of worms they are particularly clever*.

For every complaint, rheumatism especially, they use the actual cautery: a man thinks no more of being fired in Cairo than one does in England of being shaved. The Arabs either have less nervous sensibility, or more moral courage than Europeans.

*

They consider the bark of the pomegranate as a specific, not only for ascarides, but also for the tape-worm. I have rarely seen it fail in the cure of tænia. They make a decoction of two ounces of the fresh bark in a pint of water; this they drink daily till the worm is expelled, which it generally is the third day. But the most valuable of all remedies for the tape-worm is an Abyssinian plant, called Cossu; I believe I am the first person who brought it to England, The history of this invaluable and almost unknown plant is very singular. In 1823 I found, as I passed through Paris, that the French botanists had just given the name of Brayer to an Abyssinian anthelminthick, which they extolled to the skies, and had decreed all the honours of the Academy to the discoverer, Dr. Brayer, of Constantinople. Three years after this I received a letter from Dr. Brayer, requesting me to write to Abyssinia for a provision of the invaluable Cossu,

and enclosing me a treatise he had just published on the virtues of the plant he had been so fortunate as to discover, though he had never visited Abyssinia. In the mean time

I at last embarked for Egypt, with the Rev. Mr. Muller, taking care not to forget the conical head which has undergone a sea christening, and is now called St. Saba.

I am, my dear Sir,

Yours very truly,

R. R. M.

Mr. Coffin arrived in Egypt from Abyssinia, and brought with him a quantity of this plant, which he prized as he did the apple of his eye; but I was fortunate enough to get some ounces of it, which I have since presented to Dr. Ramage, &c.

On my arrival in England, on looking over Bruce, I was astonished to find a long and most accurate description of the Cossu, and a drawing of the plant; so that what now goes under the name, in the French botanical works, of "The plant Brayer," is found in Bruce's fifth volume, page 45, called "Cossu," or "Bankesia Abyssinica," after Sir Joseph Bankes.

Thus has poor Bruce been again cheated of his well earned fame; and the name of a Frenchman given to a plant which Bruce was the first to describe and discover, and that most accurately. The flowers only are used in medicine; the dose is an infusion of three or four drachms in a pint of boiling water. Of all remedies for worms, this is the only specific. The tree attains to twenty feet, the leaf is two inches long, the flower consists of five petals, with a short pistil, and eight stamina.

DEAR SIR,

LETTER XL.

TO JOHN ELMSLIE, ESQ.

Alexandria, Nov. 1, 1827.

DURING my last residence in Damietta, I attended, almost nightly, the Arab conversazioni of the principal people of the place, as the late events in the Mediterranean created considerable interest in every town in Egypt. At one of these entertainments the discourse appeared to me of more than common interest, so that, on returning to my lodging, I set down the particulars of the conversation, as the opinions of men of rank and fortune, and such as prevail amongst the higher classes in these countries. For obvious reasons I deem it advisable to omit the names of these Moslem politicians; for Mohammed Ali is as a very Christian prince in his animosity to that licentiousness which has its origin in freedom of discussion.

374

ARAB CONVERSAZIONE.

Figure to yourself a quadrangular apartment, with a raised platform occupying the upper half, furnished with a divan on either side for the guests, and one at the extremity, beneath the window, with an additional mattress, for the host and the most important personages present. Below the platform is seen a crowd of slaves and servants, standing in respectful order, each one watching every motion of his master to fetch the coffee or the pipe. Fancy an Arab improvvisatore in the centre, recounting anecdotes of Haroun el Raschid, or the adventures of Ebn Oaz;-a pious Imam laying down the law, or explaining the important distinction between an ablution commenced at the tip of the elbow and one begun at the top of the little finger. A barber-surgeon astonished his hearers with the wonderful effects of the moon on the circulation of the blood;-how Sheik Daoud, the great author of the History of Physic, first discovered the ebb and flow of the blood, like that of the ocean, to be governed by the nocturnal planet. A Hadji, with a venerable beard, narrated the wonders of the Wilderness; how he had been stripped and plundered by the Wahabees, whose chief was said to deal with the Shitan,

T

ARAB CONVERSAZIONE.

375

and to sicken the camels of the pilgrim in the Desert. A Turkish officer calculated how many Christians he could cut down with a single blow of his sabre; or, enumerated all the infidel princes of Europe who pay tribute to the Sultan, and send their slaves to his Porte to hold his foot stirrup. A Levantine Christian, with all the importance of a "Konsul," or, at least, a drogueman, talked of astronomy to the gaping Arabs, like a learned Theban, and defended himself from the charge of blasphemy for asserting that the earth turned round the sun; the prophet never having asserted any thing of the kind. A Cadi, as a judge of the land, gave his grave decision on every disputed point; as to the culpability of entering a mosque with the left foot foremost, or the criminality of giving the salaam of peace to a Christian. A young Arab, with his clumsy lute, draws tears from the moaning listeners, while he sings of some gazelle-eyed charmer whose face was like the moon, and her figure like a javelin, who pined away till she lost her shadow, because her lover, a young Sheik, abandoned her for another. Imagine all this, and will have a tolerable idea of the regular even

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