ART. VIII.-Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petræa, and the Holy Land. By an American. With a map and engravings. 2 vols. New York: 1837.

This delightful book came too late to hand to enable us to devote to it so elaborate an examination as its merits demand. We have merely time and space for an abstract of its contents, most of which we shall present in the words of the author. It is especially pleasing to us, (though no one could rise from its perusal without great satisfaction,) as it is the work of an American. This circumstance gives a tinge to all his thoughts and views, which is entirely in harmony with one's prepossessions and feelings. American remarks upon the customs and manners of either Asia or Africa, are generally more agreeable than when elicited by kindred European subjects. In the latter case, there is apt to be too much of politics intermingled -and opposition to the institutions and ways of Europe is prone to degenerate into a sweeping radicalism which is any thing but pleasing. The two larger continents are more likely to be visited for what they have been than for what they arewe regard them as the cradle of the human race, and of arts and science, and the occupants of their soil as mere tenants or guardians of the precious relics which old Time has handed down to us. In gazing upon their venerable ruins, the actual inhabitants of the country are overlooked; or, if regarded, the contrast is so striking, the diversity so entire, that, though in the land, they may well be considered as not of the land; and weigh scarcely at all in the estimate we form of the empire we are surveying. Probably they serve to make more interesting, from their very strangeness, the remains of by-gone ages.

Egypt and Palestine have of late years been rendered very familiar by the works of eminent tourists. The pyramids, the wonders of Thebes, and the deeply interesting localities of the Holy Land, have been laid open to us with every desirable minuteness. Arabia Petræa, however, particularly the famous land of Edom, has never been so amply and entirely, and in so graphic and homely a manner, developed as in these sketches of one of our own countrymen. Messrs. Legh and Banks, and Captains Irby and Mangles, subsequently to the distinguished Burckhardt, have introduced us to many of the wonders of this doomed region-and the late magnificent work of MM. Laborde and Linant has contributed more than any other production to their full exposition. The travels of an American, however, penetrated more thoroughly into the hidden and mysterious confines of Idumea than even those of these last named illustrious tourists—and we confess that we prefer to have the tale

from one of ourselves-developing, as it does, the tastes and ideas which belong to ourselves, and affixing to circumstances and objects the same estimate which we should doubtless have done, if there. There is a freshness about the observations of our author, and enough of simplicity and of enthusiasm, too, to make them very acceptable. He travelled with feelings alive to all the impressions derivable from fine scenery, and the deep emotion consequent upon the presence of the remains of the most remote antiquity. He is nothing of the pedant, and antiquity, therefore, does not prove tiresome in his hands he is a believer, too, in revelation, and, therefore, the great charm which invests those countries loses none of its interest in his examination of them. They stand forth on his pages, as they are in fact, eternal monuments of the truth and constancy of God.

Over the spots made sacred by the wanderings and doings of God's chosen people, and still more hallowed by the immediate presence of the Deity, Mr. Stevens travelled with his Bible in his hand. It was his best guide-book; for while it led him from place to place, it served also to set before him, in all their awful and fearful reality, the fulfilment of the dread prophecies delivered in the olden time by the holy servants of Jehovah. Not a rock, nor a stream, nor a town, which did not bear its testimony, mute indeed, though more convincing than any eloquence, to the truth of their predictions. He journeyed amid the tombs of the past; but they were living testimonials to the dread certainty of God's wrathful warnings.

We shall endeavour to impart to our readers some of the pleasure which we have ourselves enjoyed in perusing these volumes, and, in doing so, will follow our author through the course of his journey. The most striking passages we shall cull as we go along.

In the month of December, 1835, Mr. Stevens arrived at Alexandria, and after a short stay departed for Cairo. His voyage so far up the "famous river" is pleasantly told, and his arrival is thus stated:

"The next morning at seven o'clock we were alongside the island of Rhoda, as the Arab boatmen called it, where the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe and found the little Moses. We crossed over in a small boat to Boulac, the harbour of Cairo, breakfasted with Mr. J—————, the brother-in-law of my friend, an engineer in the pacha's service, whose interesting wife is the only English lady there, and mounting a donkey, in half an hour I was within the walls of Grand Cairo. The traveller who goes there with the reminiscences of Arabian tales hanging about him, will no where see the Cairo of the califs; but before arriving there he will have seen a curious and striking spectacle. He will have seen, streaming from the gate among loaded camels and dromedaries, the dashing Turk with his glittering sabre, the wily Greek, the grave Armenian, and the despised Jew, with their long silk robes, their turbans,

their solemn beards, and various and striking costumes; he will have seen the harem of more than one rich Turk, eight or ten women on horseback, completely enveloped in large black silk wrappers, perfectly hiding face and person, and preceded by that abomination of the East, a black eunuch; the miserable santon, the Arab saint, with a few scanty rags on his breast and shoulders, the rest of his body perfectly naked; the swarthy Bedouin of the desert, the haughty janizary, with a cocked gun in his hand, dashing furiously through the crowd, and perhaps bearing some bloody mandate of his royal master; and perhaps he will have seen and blushed for his own image, in the person of some beggarly Italian refugee. Entering the gate, guarded by Arab soldiers in a bastard European uniform, he will cross a large square filled with officers and soldiers, surrounded by what are called palaces, but seeing nothing that can interest him, save the house in which the gallant Kleber, the hero of many a bloody field, died ingloriously by the hands of an assassin. Crossing this square, he will plunge into the narrow streets of Cairo. Winding his doubtful and perilous way among tottering and ruined houses, jostled by camels, dromedaries, horses, and donkeys, perhaps he will draw up against a wall, and, thinking of plague, hold his breath, and screw himself into nothing, while he allows a corpse to pass, followed by a long train of howling women, dressed in black with masks over their faces; and entering the large wooden gate which shuts in the Frank quarter, for protection against any sudden burst of popular fury, and seating himself in a miserable Italian locanda, he will ask himself, Where is the 'Cairo of the califs, the superb town, the holy city, the delight of the imagination, greatest among the great, whose splendour and opulence made the prophet smile?" "

He of course paid a visit to the famous pacha, Mohammed Aly, and as but few Americans have ever had the honour of a friendly chat with that notorious personage, we shall extract what our countryman says of his conference.

"While standing upon the balcony, a janizary came to tell us that the pacha would receive us, or, in other words, that we must come to the pacha. The audience-chamber was a very large room, with a high ceiling-perhaps eighty feet long and thirty high-with arabesque paintings on the wall, and a divan all around. The pacha was sitting near one corner at the extreme end, and had a long and full view of every one who approached him. I too had the same advantage, and in walking up I remarked him as a man about sixty-five, with a long and very white beard, strong features, of a somewhat vulgar cast, a short nose, red face, and rough skin, with an uncommonly fine dark eye, expressing a world of determination and energy. He wore a large turban and a long silk robe, and was smoking a long pipe with an amber mouth-piece. Altogether, he looked the Turk much better than his nominal master, the sultan.

The

"His dragoman, Nubar Bey, was there, and presented me. pacha took his pipe from his mouth, motioned me to take a seat at his right hand on the divan, and with a courteous manner said I was welcome to Egypt. I told him he would soon have to welcome half the world there; he asked me why; and without meaning to flatter the old Turk, I answered that every body had a great curiosity to visit that interesting country; that heretofore it had been very difficult to get there, and dangerous to travel in when there; but now the facilities of access were greatly increased, and travelling in Egypt had become so safe VOL. XXI.-No. 42.

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under his government, that strangers would soon come with as much confidence as they feel while travelling in Europe; and I had no doubt there would be many Americans among them. He took his pipe from his mouth and bowed. I sipped my coffee with great complacency, perfectly satified with the manner in which, for the first time, I had played the courtier to royalty. Knowing his passion for new things, I went on, and told him that he ought to continue his good works, and introduce on the Nile a steamboat from Alexandria to Cairo. He took the pipe from his mouth again, and in the tone of 'Let there be light, and there was light,' said he had ordered a couple. I knew he was fibbing, and I afterward heard from those through whom he transacted all his business in Europe, that he had never given any such order. Considering that a steamboat was an appropriate weapon in the hands of an American, I followed up my blow by telling him that I had just seen mentioned in a European paper, a project to run steamboats from New York to Liverpool in twelve or fourteen days. He asked me the distance; I told him, and he said nothing and smoked on. He knew America, and particularly from a circumstance which, I afterward found, had done wonders in giving her a name and character in the East, the visit of Commodore Patterson in the ship Delaware. So far I had taken decidedly the lead in the conversation; but the constant repetition of 'Son Altesse,' by the dragoman, began to remind me that I was in the presence of royalty, and that it was my duty to speak only when I was spoken to. I waited to give him a chance, and the first question he asked me was, as to the rate of speed of the steamboats on our rivers. Remembering an old, crazy, five or six mile an hour boat that I had seen in Alexandria, I was afraid to tell him the whole truth, lest he should not believe me, and did not venture to go higher than fifteen miles an hour; and even then he looked as Ilderim may be supposed to have looked when the Knight of the Leopard told him of having crossed over a lake like the Dead Sea without wetting his horse's hoofs. I have no doubt, if he ever thought of me afterward, it was as the lying American; and, just at this moment, the party of English coming in, I rose and took my leave. Gibbon says 'When Persia was governed by the descendants of Sefis, a race of princes whose wanton cruelty often stained their divan, their table, and their bed, with the blood of their favourites, there is a saying recorded of a young nobleman, that he never departed from the sultan's presence without satisfying himself whether his bead was still on his shoulders.' It was in somewhat of the same spirit that, in passing, one of the Englishmen whispered to me, 'Are you sure of your legs?'

"During my interview with the pacha, although my conversation and attention were directed towards him, I could not help remarking particularly his dragoman, Nubar Bey. He was an Armenian, perhaps a year or two over thirty, with an olive complexion, and a countenance like marble. He stood up before us, about half way between the pacha and me, his calm eye finely contrasted with the roving and unsettled glances of the pacha, a perfect picture of indifference, standing like a mere machine to translate words, without seeming to comprehend or take the least interest in their import; and though I had been particularly recommended to him, he did not give me a single glance to intimate that he had ever seen me before, or cared ever to see me again. He was an ambitious man, and was evidently acting, and acted well, a part suited to an Eastern court; the part necessary in his responsible and dangerous position, as the depositary of important secrets of government. He was in high favour with the pacha, and when I left was in a

fair way of attaining any honour at which his ambiticus spirit might aim. On my return to Alexandria, four months after, he was dead."pp. 38-42.

On the first of January, 1836, he left Cairo, and commenced his course up the Nile in a boat he had hired for the occasion. The travellers had a strong head wind to contend against, and made but little progress. After much labour they succeeded, by the eighth of the month, in reaching Minyeh. It was the season of Ramadan, when, as our readers know, for thirty days, from the rising to the setting of the sun, the followers of the prophet are forbidden to eat, drink, smoke, or take a bath. This last luxury our countryman was determined to enjoy.

'My first enquiry was for a bath. It would not be heated or lighted up till eight o'clock; at eight o'clock I went, and was surprised to find it so large and comfortable. I was not long surprised, however, for I found that no sooner was the sacred prohibition removed, than the Turks and Arabs began to pour in in throngs; they came without any respect of persons-the haughty Turk with his pipe-bearing slave, and the poor Arab boatman; in short, every one who could raise a few paras. "It was certainly not a very select company, nor over clean, and probably very few Europeans would have stood the thing as I did. My boatmen were all there. They were my servants, said the rais, and were bound to follow me every where. As I was a Frank, and, as such, expected to pay ten times as much as any one else, I had the best place in the bath, at the head of the great reservoir of hot water. My white skin made me a marked object among the swarthy figures lying around me; and half a dozen of the operatives, lank, bony fellows, and perfectly naked, came up and claimed me. They settled it among themselves, however, and gave the preference to a dried-up old man, more than sixty, a perfect living skeleton, who had been more than forty years a scrubber in the bath. He took me through the first process of rubbing with the glove and brush; and having thrown over me a copious ablution of warm water, left me to recover at leisure. I lay on the marble that formed the border of the reservoir, only two or three inches above the surface of the water, into which I put my hand and found it excessively hot; but the old man, satisfied with his exertion in rubbing me, sat on the edge of the reservoir, with his feet and legs hanging in the water, with every appearance of satisfaction. Presently he slid off into the water, and sinking up to his chin, remained so a moment, drew a long breath, and seemed to look around him with a feeling of comfort. I had hardly raised myself on my elbow to look at this phenomenon, before a fine brawny fellow, who had been lying for some time torpid by my side, rose slowly, slid off like a turtle, and continued sinking until he too had immersed himself up to his chin. I expressed to him my astonishment at his ability to endure such heat, but he told me that he was a boatman, had been ten days coming up from Cairo, and was almost frozen, and his only regret was that the water was not much hotter. He had hardly answered me before another and another followed, till all the dark naked figures around me had vanished. By the fitful glimmering of the little lamps, all that I could see was a parcel of shaved heads on the surface of the water, at rest, or turning slowly and quietly as on pivots. Most of them seemed to be enjoying it with an air of quiet dreamy satisfaction; but the man with whom I had spoken first,