(prosperity to all his house), has since then been more friendly to me than ever.”

This worthy Monk complained to me a good deal, of the nightly depredations which the "rascally Copts," "Copti scelerati," committed in his garden; they were in the habit, he said, of scaling the wall, breaking down his fences, and stealing his cabbages; "but you see that door below," he said, "I shot one of the scoundrels on the top of it; I watched the garden, from the chapel window, two nights running, with my doublebarrelled gun by my side, and when I discerned a head popping over the posts, I let fly at the robber, and sent two or three more balls in the same direction; I had the satisfaction of tracing drops of blood in the sand several yards from the door, but the fellow nevertheless got away.”

On leaving the convent, I observed that the garden door was perforated by balls, in five or six places. I listened to the recital of the shooting of the cabbage stealer, and the banishment of the Bishop, with great calmness. I took I took my leave of his reverence, after inquiring about the convents in the neighbourhood, which I gave him to un

derstand my friend and myself were commissioned to relieve with money, by a most excellent and affluent Roman Catholic nobleman. We did not give him time to recover from his astonishment ; the few words he spoke we drowned with our adieus; "Adio Signore Padre! adio! adio!" He pursued us to the boat; his convent, he said, was lamentably poor, and he had borrowed money from the Turks, to rebuild the altar; if we would only give him twenty dollars it would be something towards the support of religion.

"Listen to me, father," said I to him, " you shall not have twenty paras from us; for what security have we, that instead of devoting our charity to the true purposes of religion, you would not expend the money in purchasing powder to shoot your fellow Christians, for depriving you of a cabbage! what security have we, that our alms, instead of enabling you to live peaceably within the walls of your convent, would not furnish with the means of carrying on your intrigues with the common enemy of all Christians; of banishing, perhaps, another bishop, and leaving another Christian flock without a pastor: not a single paras shall you have, my good father, and

you

this Copt here, who is listening to my words, may tell his priest, that whenever you again interfere with his people, he may write to the English hakkim, at Scanderia, and that he shall lay the complaint of your conduct before the Pacha." I cast off the boat from the shore, leaving my reverend gentleman thunderstruck with surprise.

The provisions we got from Abden Casheff were all finished before our arrival at Thebes. If we killed a sheep in the morning we were obliged to get through it at dinner, with the assistance of our Arabs, for it would not keep till morning. The weather was dreadfully oppressive, the thermometer, in July, was seldom below 106° at halfpast two in the afternoon, in the cabin of our boat; and here, in Thebes, the reflection of the sun on the white surface of the mountains behind Gourna, increases the temperature. The common range of the thermometer, at half-past two, in the shade, has been 109°.

Two days before our arrival here we were destitute of every thing; we could get no provisions in the villages. One evening I was begging to purchase a little milk; an old Arab observed that I had been refused, he took my companion

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49

by the hand, and said, "Follow me; whatever I have you shall have the half of it." He He gave us about a gallon of milk and a score of douro loaves. I offered him five or six piastres in return; a sum, in Upper Egypt, equivalent to ten times the amount in England; and he who knows the misery of the Arabs can best appreciate the hospitable feeling which could prompt the refusal of so large a sum. The old man stroked his white beard, “La la! hawadgi," said he, "I do not want your money, why should I take any for a mouthful of bread, does it not all come from God?"

He pointed to heaven as he spoke; and, as this simple and beautiful expression passed his lips, I thought it gained additional impressiveness from the natural dignity of his manner, and the unstudied elegance of his Arab oratory.

Most travellers have remarked, in eastern countries, the natural eloquence of the uncivilized inhabitants; but, in no nation is the love of eloquence carried so far as in Egypt and Arabia. I have listened with delight to the declamation of their sheiks, when the people assembled round them in the evening to hear the politics of the village, or the eternal stories of the "elf lele

wahad," the thousand and one nights of the Arabian Entertainment. Their common language is half prose, half poetry: Phillips might attend their soirées to cull fresh flowers of oratory, and Moore take a corner of their mat to collect new images of poetry.

The last day of our voyage I was solicited to visit a sick child of an Arab peasant. I accompanied the mother to the village, and found the poor child in a miserable hut, six feet in height, the door three feet and a half high, neither window nor chimney, and the room within about twelve feet square, and filled with smoke*; it was impossible to remain within, the smell was so dreadful and the smoke so suffocating. The child was brought out; it was covered with confluent smallpox, and a variety of amulets and charms were tied on its neck and forehead.

After giving some medicines to the mother, I was going away, but I was now surrounded by a

* The wretchedness of an Arab hut is only to be compared to the squalid misery of an Irish cabin; but, taking all things into consideration, an Irish peasant is more to be pitied than an Arab fellah; the destitution and degradation of both are on a par, the latter is not the victim of intolerance, he is only the slave of fanaticism.