the flute was carried to such a high degree of perfection among the ancients, that there were various kinds of them, and so different in sound, as to be wonderfully adapted to express all manner of subjects.

With respect to harmony, it has been cursorily treated of by many respectable ancients. Macrobius speaks of five notes, among which the base bears such a symphony with those above it, that, however different, they altogether composed one sound. Ptolemy, speaking of the monochord, calls it a mighty simple instrument, as having nether unison, accompaniment, variety, nor complication of sounds. Seneca, in one of his letters, says to his friend, Do not you observe how many different voices a band of music is composed of? There you have the base, the higher notes, and the intermediate, the soft accents of women, and the tones of men intermingled with the sounds of flutes, which, however separately distinct, form altogether but one harmony of sound, in which each bears a share.' Plato sufficiently makes it appear, that he knew what harmony was, when he says that music is a proper study for youth, and should employ three years of their time; but that it was improper to put them upon playing alternately in concert, it being enough for them, if they could accompany their voice with the lyre. And the reason he gives for it is, that the accompaniment of various instruments, the base with those of a higher key, and the variety, and even opposition of symphonies, where music is played in divisions, can only embarrass the minds of youth. True it is, the ancients did not much practise compound music; but that proceeded only from their not liking it. For Aristotle, after asking why one instrument accompanied only by a single voice gave more delight than that very voice would do with a greater number, replies, that the multitude of instruments only obstructed the sound of the song, and

hindered it from being heard. Yet the same author, in another place, expressly says, that music, by the combination of the base and higher tones, and of notes long and short, and of a variety of voices, arises in perfect harmony. And in the following chapter, speaking of the revolutions of the several planets, as perfectly harmonizing with one another, they being all of them conducted by the same principle, he draws a comparison from music to illustrate his sentiments; just as in a chorus, says he, of men and wo men, where all the variety of voices through all the different tones, from the base to the higher notes, being under the guidance and direction of a musician, perfectly correspond with one another, and form a full harmony. Aurelius Cassidorus defines symphony to be the art of so adjusting the base to the higher notes, and them to it, through all the voices and instruments, whether they be wind or stringed instruments, that thence an agreeable harmony may result. And Horace speaks expressly of the base and higher tones, and the harmony resulting from their concurrence. All these testimonies, therefore, uniting in favour of the harmony of the ancients, ought not to leave us the least doubt respecting this branch of their knowledge. We have seen the reason why they did not much use harmony in concert. One fine voice alone, accompanied with one instrument, regulated entirely by it, pleased them better than mere music, without voices, and made a more lively impression on their feeling minds. And this is what even we ourselves every day experience.

For the Literary Magazine.

FACTS RELATIVE TO THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CITY OF TRIPOLI; BY JONATHAN COWDERY, SURGEON OF THE LATE

DELPHIA.

July 10, 1805.

THE city of Tripoli stands on the north coast of Africa, in north latitude 32° 54', and longitude east from London 13° 11'; and is built on the ruins of the ancient Oca, on a sandy soil. It contains about 40,000 Turks, 5000 Jews, and 1000 Roman catholics and Greeks. It has eight mosques and one christian church; some of the mosques are very large.

The baths are places of considerable resort, on account of the injunctions of Mahomet, which direct the keeping the body clean: but I have seen many deviate from this, and rub their bodies with dry sand instead of water. This custom, I am informed, originated from the pilgrims and travellers not being able to find water while travelling over the desert. The Bedouins, a kind of sojourning Arabs, and people from the interior of Africa, of ten prefer this imperfect method of purification, even when water is at hand.

Many of the buildings have the appearance of great antiquity, of which the Turks can give no account. Among them is a Roman palace and a triumphal arch. The castle stands on the water's edge, in the north-easternmost corner of the city. Its ramparts are of different heights; on the land side they are from forty to eighty, and on the water side they are from thirty-five to forty feet in height. Twenty-five pieces of brass ordnance, of different sizes, are mounted on different parts of the castle, to command the city, adjoining country, and harbour. Several of the apartments in the west end of the castle are large, commodious, and airy, ornamented with a variety of fine marble, mosaic and stucco work, and richly furnished in the Turkish style.

Here the bashaw receives and

* This substitute, in cases of necessity, is allowed by Mahomet.-Ed.

sadors and consuls; holds his divan, which he often imperiously overrules; and gives his mandates, which are often enforced by the most cruel torture and death. Here are a great number of smaller apartments; a large open court and spacious gallery, for the accommodation and residence of the bashaw, his wives, children, and attendants: here is also a bomb-proof room, to which the bashaw flies in times of danger. The apartments in the east end of the castle are stables for the bashaw's horses, and prisons where our officers and myself were confined, and where the bashaw confines his hostages and criminals; and in the midst of which is the magazine of gunpowder. These gloomy mansions of horror are in bad repair, full of vermin, and is the filthiest place in all Tripoli.

The city, including the castle, is three miles and a half in circumference. The country about Tripoli, nearly to the foot of mount Atlas, which is two days' journey from Tripoli, is all, except the gardens and orchards near the city, a sandy and barren desert. The houses, the ramparts, and batteries which surround it, are built of the ruins of the ancient cities of Oca, Leptis, and Sabrata, which are chiefly of marble, and a variety of other calcareous stones, and columns of granite, many of which are very large, put together with a cement of lime and sand; but without the regularity of square, plumb-line, or level. The walls are generally whitewashed with new-slacked lime, at the commencement of the ramidan or carnival. The tops of the houses are flat, and covered with a composition chiefly of lime, which, when dry, forms a very firm terrace. To ward against the vengeance of their enemies, the whole city is fire-proof.

The fresh water used in Tripoli, except in time of scarcity, or the fear of a siege, when it is brought from the wells in the desert on mules, asses, and christian slaves, is

rain-water caught in winter, the only time of rain in this country; it runs from the terraces, through well constructed earthen tubes into large vaulted reservoirs, which are built of stone and lime, and well coated with lime, and are in the earth below the influence of the sun; where it is preserved from filth, and when drawn for use it is remarkably clear, cool, and pleasant. The wells in and about Tripoli, for about two miles from the sea-shore, produce brackish water, which is used for scrubbing and drenching the sinks, necessaries, sewers, &c., and for watering the gardens and orchards during the dry season. Sinks lead from the houses through the bottoms of the "necessaries into very large common sewers, which lead into the sea, all of which are built of stone and lime. The seamen and marines of the late frigate Philadelphia can attest the vast quantity of lime used in Tripoli; a number of whom were driven, by unfeeling barbarians, to work in it for nineteen months.

The streets, not being paved, are naturally very dusty; but every thing of the nature of manure is diligently sought for, gathered into large baskets, slung upon camels, mules, and asses, and carried to the gardens and orchards, to raise the soil from its natural state of barrenness. These little plantations are each enclosed with high walls; they contain from two to six acres each; several of them are cultivated by European gardeners, and are made to produce all the useful roots, plants, and fruits that are natural to the torrid and temperate zones. These enclosures are about 2000 in number, all interspersed with tall date trees, and are laid out in such

ping on the coast, presents a beautiful prospect.

The winds from the north, northeast, and north-west, are generally very salubrious; those from the south, south-west, and south-east, come over the parched continent, and are very oppressive: they are called the Sirocco, and sometimes rise to that degree of heat and violence, that those who are not able to find shelter in houses, tents, &c., often perish; it sometimes lasts three days, but generally not longer than the first twelve of the twentyfour hours. The want of proper apparatus rendered me unable to learn the different degrees of the temperature of the climate. The nights and mornings are sometimes cool after rain; but I never, while in Tripoli, saw any frost or snow.

The principal market is held, every Tuesday, on the sandy beach about one mile easterly of the city, where a variety of articles are sold, and the butchers kill and sell their meat, chiefly to christians, Jews, and the higher order of Turks. Very little meat is killed in the city. The common class of people, and the bashaw's troops and seamen, eat but little meat; their diet is chiefly dates, olives, oil of olives, bread, and a variety of vegetables, which they cook in oil. The Turks are, with a few exceptions, strangers to luxury and dissipation.

The prevailing disorders among the natives of Tripoli were, ophthalmia in summer, and catarrh and slight pneumonic affections in winter. The former I attributed to a remarkably serene and brilliant sky, and the scorching winds from the continent; the latter to the want or neglect of proper clothing. The dead, except those of the bashaw's family, and a high order of marabuts, or priests, are buried out of the city. On the beach, one cable length east of the castle, and half a cable length above high water mark, myself, with our boatswain and twelve of our crew, did last summer, through the desire of captain Bainbridge, and permission

20,000

The population of each town inIcluded in the vast circumference of the French republic, is set down in a table which occupies several pages; but it is evident, even from this abstract from it, that the population in many of them is given by guess, and not from actual enumeration. It is supposed that the population of Paris is over-rated, and that the actual number of inhabitants does not exceed 500,000: but, be this as it may, we may assure ourselves that as the French government has devoted its attention to this subject, each year will bring this catalogue nearer the truth. Why may not our almanacs contain an account of the population of each city and town in the United States ?

For the Literary Magazine.

PRESENT STATE OF ATHENS.

By a late traveller.

THOUGH numerous the injuries of time, of nature, of war, and of accidents, which Athens has suffered, its antiquities are still extant as monuments of its superior grandeur and beauty over all the cities that ever existed. High upon a rock, to which there is no possible access but by the western end, are the ruins of the Acropolis. Cecrops chose it as a place of retreat and defence for those inhabitants of Attica whom he had collected from the surrounding villages, &c. I cannot possibly imagine any thing of the kind more magnificent than

its propylæa or vestibule. It was built by Pericles, who coated the front and steps with white polished marble. Its five gates still remain, but the largest or central is the only one not filled up. Between them are doric pilasters, which contribute much to the beauty of their appearance. Indeed to behold this edifice without the liveliest sensations of admiration and pleasure, even as it now is, seems to me impossible; conceive then what it must have been when embellished by the sculp ture of Phidias, and unimpaired. The first object that meets the eye on passing it is the temple of Minerva, called Parthenon in honour of her virginity, and from its dimension of a hundred feet in width Ecatompedon. It was held in the highest veneration by the Athenians, as the supposed habitation of their tutelary deity, whose statue it contained. In this celebrated image, which was made of gold and ivory, 36 cubits in height, Phidias display. ed all his art. When the Persians took possession of this city, they burnt the Parthenon with the other temples, and I might say fortu nately, as it happened at a period but little antecedent to the time when the polite arts had attained to perfection; when Pericles, with the aid of Phidias, Callicrates, and Ictinus, rebuilt it. The emperor Hadrian, whose attachment to Athens was continually displayed in his munificence, repaired it so effectually, that it continued almost entire from his reign to 1687, when unfortunately a bomb fired from the camp of Morosini, the Venetian general who besieged Athens, fell upon and destroyed the roof. Its decay since that accident has been rapid, and its richest ornaments pillaged. It was raised on a base of six steps its peristyle had fortysix columns, eight channelled in each front, and fifteen plain at the sides. They are forty-one feet and a half in height, and six in diameter. Its mutilated entablature represents battles between the Athenians and Centaurs, with religious ceremonies, processions, &c. On the posticus

VOL. VIII. NO. XLIX.

was sculptured the birth of Miner va. It is lamentable to behold the ravages that travellers have made upon the inimitable relievi of this and the other temples. With difficulty I discover what they represent, as not a figure is entire. The noblest sculpture of Athens that has escaped the injuries of time, &c., is now scattered over Europe, and lodged in the cabinets of nations, whose barbarous ancestors were not known even by name to the polished inhabitants of Greece. The Parthenon was the principal temple of the Acropolis, and generally the most admired; but I think with little reason, as that of Neptune, named Erectheus, is of far more elegant, if of less noble architecture. It is like the Apollo of the Belvedere, the unrivalled master-piece of its kind. When I had seen the Corinthian temple at Nismes called La Maison Quarree, I despaired of ever again beholding a building that would afford me such comfort in the contemplation of it. In Italy and Sicily I found nothing comparable with it, but on turning from the Parthenon, how great was my astonishment and delight to behold a model of Ionic structure, than which nothing could be more simple, and yet more sublime! It is impossible to mistake it, from the description of Pausanias, who calls it diploun Oichema, a double building, the two parts of it being joined together at right angles. The one is dedicated to Neptune or Erecthous, and the other to Minerva Polias, protectress of the citadel. By their junction the Athenians symbolized the reconciliation of these deities after their contest for naming Athens. In the former was the salt spring produced by a blow of Neptune's trident: in the latter the olive tree, Minerva's more profitable gift, and her image said to have fallen from heaven, which was guarded by a serpent of uncommon size called oicouros Ophis: the superstitious Pausanias knew not whether to receive or reject this miraculous story. Adjoining to the Polias is a small temple erected in honour of

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