ture of nature in this fpot, while every thing around exhibits only fymptoms of her death.

"It is impoffible to determine the extent of the lakes in which the Natron is formed, as it varies according to the feafons. In that season when water is most abundant, the two lakes are united in one, of much greater length than breadth, and occupying a space of feveral leagues; at other periods, they are nothing more than ponds of no great extent.

"When the two lakes separate, and their waters retire, the foil they had inundated, and which they have now left uncovered, is loaded with a fediment, cryftallized and hardened by the fun. This is the Natron. The thicknefs of this layer of falt varies, according as the water has remained a longer or shorter period on the ground. In places where it has merely wetted it for a very fhort time, the Natron exhibits only a flight efflorefcence, refembling flakes of fnow. I have been told that, at certain periods, this fubitance covers the furface of the water. Granger fays, in his account of his Travels in Egypt, that, at the end of Auguft, the falt of the lake was concreted on the fuiface, and thick enough for camels to pafs over it; but when I faw it, it was clear and limpid: it is, perhaps, the moft diuretic of all waters; a property for which it is indebted to the faline particles it contains; and the phyfician, whofe art ceases to be conjectural only when it is guided by natural philofophy, will, perhaps, find in its ufe, fimple and natural means of curing obftructions and infarctions of the vifcera, as well as fome other difeafes that are pretty common in Egypt."

He gives a minute account of various plants, of which there are good engravings; among thefe, one of the most eminent is the banana-tree, of which the account is as follows:

"The ripening fruit of the banana-tree adorns the gardens of Roffetta, with its yellow hue, during the three winter months. This tree is not indigenous to the country, and hitherto its cultivation has been confined to the north of Egypt. It is pretty common about Roffetta, and, as I am informed, in the environs of Damietta. A few may be feen, likewife, at Cairo, but none farther fouth. Indeel, at Cairo, it is fo fcarce, that a basket of its fruit, which is much efte:med for its foft and flightly acid pulp, is confidered as a rare and very acceptable prefent. The firft of this fpecies of the mufa is known in the French Weft. India islands by the name of figue banane, and it Cayenne by that of bacove. It is lefs infipid, and more agreeable to the tafte, than that of the plantain-tree.”

With great minutenefs he goes over the vegetable kingdom. Of the animal he makes many obfervations, and adduces many inftances to fupport his account. Of natural hiftory, one of the most curious objects is the gerboife.

"For the facility of pronunciation," fays he, "I shall distin

guish this gerboife of Egypt by the name of jerbo, under which Buffon has given a defcription of it, though its real name, its Arabic name, be jerboa. It is a miftake in Harfelquitz, which Bruce has likewife corrected, to fay that the Arabs call it garbuka.

That travellers, unacquainted with natural hiftory, and confequently without tafte for obfervations of this kind, fhould, at first fight, and without farther examination, have impofed falfe denominations on foreign animals, from fome apparent relation, whether in respect of form or mode of living, with known animals, is not a matter of furprize their manner of viewing objects was fuperficial and vulgar; the refults had the fame defects. But there is good reafon to be furprized, that naturalifts by profeffion, that Harfelquitz, for example, the pupil of an illuftrious mafter, fhould have fallen into the fame errors. He is fo much the lefs excufeable, that he did not fix on the denomination to be appropriated, till after a long, and even minute examination. But he had, like his mafter Linnæus, the mania of referring to the fame genus, beings which nature had fepa rated. This union of objects, frequently very remote from each other in the true fyftem of nature, was founded merely on certain approximations in the exterior forms; approximations ifolated, vague, taken by chance, and fo deftitute of foundation, that they might be given up, and were, in fact, given up, to affume others equally precarious, by means of which the fame animal changed place or genus, at the pleasure of the nomenclator."

In various parts of his work, the author defcribes animals of the quadruped and viped kind, reptiles, and infects; the crocodiles, according to him, are much less pernicious than is generally defcribed :

"In remote times," he fays, "the crocodile experienced a dif ferent treatment in Egypt, according to the place in which it was to be found. In one part, it was purfued with fury, and destroyed without pity; in another, it was an object of veneration. The inhabitants of the environs of Thebes, and of the lake Mæris, rcgarded it as a facred animal. They chofe out one from among them, which they tamed; they took the greateft care of it; its food was prefcribed, and regulated by religious books; they adorned it with ear-rings, made of gold, or of fictitious ftones, and with a fort of bracelets on its fore feet; an attire far too elegant for an animal fo hideous.

"At prefent, the crocodile is neither deftroyed nor reverenced; they are left in peace, to impart their mufk fmell to the waters of the Nile, and to clear them of fishes. Banished to the most fouthern part of Egypt, they affemble there in vaft numbers: they are to be feen when the fun is at its height, their heads above the water, immoveable, and appearing, at a diftance, like large pieces of floating wood, gliding flowly down with the current, and basking in the heat, of which they are very fond. I have shot several in that fituation, and very clofe to them; for not being often difturbed, I

could approach them eafily. With a coat of mail, which refifts the ball, it is very difficult to kill them. I was in hopes of being able to fracture their skull by a discharge from my musket, loaded with a flug; but whether it be, that they were equally impenetrable there, or whether, being wounded only, they retired to die, fome time after, at the bottom of the deep, I know not; but all those I shot made á plunge, and difappeared immediately.

"In the neigbourhood of Thebes, the fmall boat in which I failed up the river was often furrounded by crocodiles, on a level with the furface; they faw us pafs with indifference; they neither difco vered fear, nor any cruel intent at our approach. The noise, occafioned by musket-shot, was alone able to disturb them in their state of tranquil apathy they never rife upon veffels, and how little foever they may be lifted above the water, nothing is to be apprehended from their attacks. But you must avoid thrufting your arms, or legs, into the ftream, or you will run the risk of getting them snapped off by their fharp and pointed teeth,

Very alert in the water, which they cut with rapidity, they make but flow progrefs on dry land; and were it not that their flimé colour, and the bed of mud with which they cover themselves in walking along the miry fhores of the Nile, difguises them fo as to render them lefs perceptible, and thus expofe you to be futprized by them; they are by no means fo dangerous out of the watery elements in which they are ftronger and more at liberty.

"The fecundity of the crocodile would prove a terrible scourge to the country which it inhabits, did not numerous enemies, among which the tortoife of the Nile ranks the foremost, prevent its multiplication by devouring its eggs, and the young ones as foon as they are hatched. Seven young crocodiles hatched two days before, were brought to me at Kous; they were eleven inches long, and their teeth were already very harp, The Egyptian who took them, in formed me that there were about fifty of them together, but that it was impoffible for him to feize them all, because their mother had arrived unexpectedly and was eager to fly upon him. These reptiles already fo formidable from their hideous form and their voracity, are ftill more fo from their immenfe length. I faw at the convent of Néguadé, the skin of a crocodile, thirty feet long and four broad. I have been affured that fome have been found in the Nile, even fifty feet in length."

Of the antelope he gives the following account;

"That pretty species of animal, (the eyes of which are confidered in the east, as the ftandard of perfection,) the antelope, is feen march ing in numerous herds, and traverfing with speed, the hills and plains. Thefe are as fhy as the wild oxen, and the approach of a strange ob ject is fufficient to make them disappear, Their lightness and cele rity are unparallelled, Nature has bestowed on them long legs, flen. der and tendinous, which, while they protect their liberty, feem to be another obstacle to the defire men might form of fubjugating them,

In fact, their legs are fo flender and brittle at the fame time, that they break in the attempt to convey the animal from place to place, or even when it is kept on a pavement, or a floor which is smooth enough to be lippery. The Arab, however, mounted on his courfer, overtakes these fwift-footed animals, and throws a ftick at them, by which their legs are most commonly entangled and broken; fo that it is very rare you can procure one alive, without its being fo crippled that it is impoffible to keep it."

Having made fome common obfervations on the tiger, he proceeds to the oftrich,

"I frequently obferved recent traces of oftriches. The hunting of these animals is one of the exercises in which the Arab displays moft addrefs, and his horfe moft fpeed, It requires confiderable time to mafter one of thefe birds, which run with aftonishing rapidity. Huffein, who was an old experienced hunter, told me, by way of giving me an idea of the length of the chace, that if they fet out at eight in the morning, they could not get to ftop the oftrich, by throwing a tick between his legs in the fame manner as at the antelope, till near four o'clock in the afternoon. With greyhounds it may be accomplished fooner, Some, who have more patience, inflead of hunting oftriches, keep on the watch behind the bushes, waiting to. fire at them, if any one chance to pafs within hot. No perfon, however, eats their flesh. When they kill them, they content themselves with plucking out their fine feathers to make plumes, and taking their fat which they ufe in cookery. They likewife bring into the towns many oftrich's eggs, which are very good eating, and fo large, that one is a fufficient meal for a man. Thefe eggs, fufpended under the vaulted roofs, are one of the most common ornaments of the Maho. metan mofques, and of the Greek and Cophtic churches."

Although very accurate and particular, in whatever related to other animals, he is far from being equally minute or equally interesting in his views of man. Man, indeed, he has confidered very fuperficially, at least, in whatever diftinguishes him from other fpecies of animals. His animal nature and wants appear to have chiefly attracted the writer's attention. A great portion of that part of the work, which is devoted to the defcription of human beings, is occupied by the female fex. Even on this fubject, he rather informs us of the impreffions made on himself, than of the charms and qualities of the objects. He is extremely particular in marking circumftances in the intercourfe of the fexes, which many writers would have left to their reader's imagination. We fhall transcribe a story quoted by him from an Arabian writer, as in the praise he bestows upon it, he himself fhews the nature of his own tafte. Speaking of convivial meetings, he says,

"There is fcarcely one of thofe haunts, but what attracts to it fome ftory-teller, by profeffion, who is never tired with telling, nor his auditors of liftening to him. The narration of thofe indefatigable orators, are, for the most part, very infipid and tiresome. The Arabian writers, however, from whom their stories are borrowed, fometimes furnith them with fome that are excellent. Such is the one that follows, which I have committed to memory, because it is short and poigrant.

A Turk had repeated to his wife, a fermon delivered by the Iman of his Mofque. The prieft had been declaiming on the facrednefs and the obligations of wedlock. All thofe, faid he, who acquit themfelves of their duties early in the night, perform a work as meritorious as if they facrificed a fheep. Thofe who, in the middle of the night, render a fecond tribute, do as much in the eyes of the gods as if they facrificed a camel. Thofe, finally, who at fun-rifing, render a third homage to the fanctity of their union, merie as much as if they had ranfomed a flave. The wife, deeply concerned about her husband's falvation, fays to him, as the evening approaches, My friend, let us facrifice a fheep; and the fleep was facrificed. At midnight the Turk was awakened: Come, my friend, (faid he,) let us facrifice a camel;' this facrifice too was offered up. Scarcely had the day begun to dawn, when the fervent Muffulman lady admonished her spouse, that the moment was come for ranfoming a flave; when turning towards her, with out-stretched arms, Alas! my dear foul, (faid he) it is I who am thy flave; I conjure thee fet me at liberty.'

Several adventures of his own are detailed, which are certainly neither very important nor inftructive. As women in thofe countries are, to the barbarians of the opposite sex, merely objects of animal defire instead of rational and fentimental affection, almoft their fole concern appears to be to increase their value as means of gratification. The author dwells on fubjects of this fpecies with a circumftantial accuracy, that fhews he either was, or wished to be thought, a proper perfon to be an arbiter deliciarum. Nor does the reverend tranflator omit a fingle item of the perfpicuous accounts of the original. Great is the clearnefs with which certain changes, (not ufual among European ladies) are fet before the English reader, and of which, without following either the writer or tranflator into details, we may, perhaps, fuggeft an idea from one of the phrafes. According to the ladies of the Haram, a great conftituent of beauty, is to remove the veil of nature. On female circumcifion, whoever wishes to be particularly informed, may confult Mr. Sonnini, or his clerical interpreter, which laft gentleman has thought it expedient to give a very liberal verfion of the account of that operation. Some fqueamish tranflators might have omitted fome of thefe

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