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beautiful," he exclaimed to the communicative Greek who had been expatiating with so much patriotism on the virtues of his ancestors—"how beautiful are these islands, and how happy must the people be who live with those they love, on the very smallest portion of their soil!"

"Alas! Effendi," said the Greek," the foulest place can make the fairest prospects. Have you ever looked on the shores of Stamboul from the sea, gazed on the miniature of ocean, on whose smiling borders of living emerald, beauty has her kiosques, rayahs his palaces, religion her thousand spires, and luxury its gardens of delight? Has your astonished eye banquetted on the enchanting view of the Bosphorus, where all that heaven has done for the beauty of that favoured spot is seen, and all that barbarity could do to deface its loveliness, is concealed in the distance? Have you gazed on the forest of moving masts, whose shadows are projected from land to land—the innumerable ships from the extreme corners of the globe which ride securely in the harbour, and the fairy skiffs which skim along the surface of a sea as smooth as the

cheek of a Phrosyne, as calm as the bosom of the lake of Paradise? Have you involuntarily turned your regard from the gloomy walls of the seraglio to the trifaced hill, on which the gorgeous city of Constantine sits in melancholy splendour, like a pale widow in her mourning garment, bedizened with incongruous ornaments, but still beautiful, though oddly drest. O, Effendi! has your soul swam in pleasure at the sight of so much beauty?—have your senses been filled with admiration at the endless variety of such a landscape ?—have you not wondered how it was possible for so many delightful objects to be mingled with such effect in so small a space—domes, palaces, sepulchres, mosques, and minarets, exulting in their pride over the surrounding dwellings of the people? If you have seen these things from the gunnel of a boat, and have never touched the shore, what have been your feelings the first moment of your landing, when your smell has been regaled with the intolerable odours of the beach, your sight offended by the filthy aspect of squalid misery, and your hearing shocked by the deafening imprecations of half a dozen confounding tongues?

If you had sufficient strength of mind and body to enable you to climb the main land of one side of the city, and to descend the steep valley of the other, how must you have panted and perspired as you waded ankle-deep in the mire; and how must you have cursed the mother of the Stamboul Effendi, when you left your slipshod papoushes in the gutter, and plapped your tender foot on the fragment of a coffee-cup, in some abominable rut in the unseen pavement! If it have been your fortune to have seen, smelt, and felt the abominations of Stamboul, I marvel at your expectation of finding beauty in these islands, or happiness amongst their inhabitants. Alas! Effendi, there are few things in the world beside affection, which distance does not improve!"

The Greek was about to commence a long string of moral reflections on the vanity of all human expectations, and meant to illustrate his observations by some allusions to his ancestors, and other topics equally pertinent, when the captain bade all his people be called up, and gave the pleasing information to his passengers that it was coming on to blow.

CHAPTER IV.

Mar. Mercy on us, we split! we split! Farewell, my wife and children! Farewell, brother!—we split!—we split!—we split!

The passengers aboard the shatoor, consisted of a Greek priest, on his way to Damiat; two Turks of a respectable appearance, who were going to seek employment in the service of the Giaour Pacha of Scanderia; a Jew moneychanger, who was turning his steps to the Kebla of Jerusalem; an Armenian merchant, who was returning to Grand Cairo with his wife; an Italian Monk, on his way from Smyrna to El Masr, and the hero of Bournarbashi, whose destination was the island of Candia, which already hove in sight.

No sooner had the captain intimated the pro

bability of the breeze freshening, than the companion was surrounded by a dozen anxious passengers. The poor captain was pestered to death by a number of ridiculous questions, which he endeavoured to answer by pointing to a small white cloud to windward, and to the ripple on the water, which had been smooth as a mirror a few minutes before. The confusion on the deck was very great; orders were given and repeated, and resisted, in a variety of tongues; the captain bawled to his people to let go the halyards and mainsheets; he prayed to them, and swore at them by turns, to clear up the topsails, and take a reef in the main mizzen. Some of the crew said there was no necessity for knocking the ropes about; it was only a squall, and it would not reach them. The captain roared to them louder than ever, that the squall was coming right a beam, that the craft was light in ballast, and could not stand the canvass. The breeze was now beginning to whistle in the ears of the landsmen: they could not understand, however, why the sea had already become rough, why the vessel pitched long before the

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