weakness; go abroad, that thou mayest find a change of men; water becomes putrid by stagnation; the moon, by changing, becomes bright and perfect.

"Oh! thou who vainly seekest error in my words; let me tell thee, the sweetness of the rose is a poison to the beetle!

"Let not the blandishments of men deceive thee; he who plans deceit can vary his deport

ment.

My words are like water, soft and palatable; but when heated, burning to some and nauseating to others.

Though I live in times when the rich man is the lord of fate, and his name must be respected even in his absence, when admonition and reprehension are not to be endured, still, however, I venture to affirm that the men of the age are buried in ignorance, myself too in the number.

"Let then alone all individual distinctions.

"May heaven forgive the errors of the propounder of these maxims; of him who receives them; and of them who carry away knowledge from the receiver!"

Notwithstanding the length of these two poems, I believe that you will not regret the perusal of them, and you will evince more charitable feelings, after having done so, than a friend of mine, who was excessively indignant at the idea of a heathen writer presuming to express such beautiful morality in Pagan poetry.

LETTER XXXIII.

TO THE REV. D. M'PHERSON.

MY DEAR SIR,

Damietta, June 22, 1827.

AFTER a journey to Suez, and along the shores of the Red Sea to the valley of Amara, I arrived here in safety a few days ago. The route from Damietta to Suez is so little known to travellers, that the good people here did every thing in their power to prevent me from encountering the perils which are supposed to beset it. The brother of the Consul, Francis Surur, had resolved to accompany me; but on the morning of my departure his friends flocked about him, supplicating him, with tears in their eyes, not to expose himself to the dangers of such a journey, and finally persuaded him to let me start alone. In their arguments with me on this subject, they said over and over, "You will find, hakkim, when it is too late, that

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a man is not a watermelon, and that when he is once planted in the ground, he will never sprout again."

But although I was not a watermelon, I determined to proceed from Damietta to the Red Sea, because I conceived this to be the route of the Israelites, and not that by Cairo to Suez. My reason for so thinking I shall make you acquainted with presently. When a day's journey from Damietta, I sent for the Sheik of the Bedouins, contracted with him for three camels, at the rate of three dollars a camel, and, on paying a further sum of three dollars, he guaranteed my safety to the town of Suez; he recommended me, however, to doff my fine Turkish clothes, to take as little baggage as possible, to be well armed, and to keep on good terms with my Bedouin guides.

My whole baggage consisted of a carpet for a bed, a large umbrella for my tent, four skins of water, and a small sack of flour; a leathern bag, containing a coffee-pot and a saucepan, a little keg of date brandy, three pounds of coffee, five pounds of tobacco, and a small basket of rice; a Bedouin blanket and a coarse linen shirt replaced my dashing Mameluke attire.

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In this state the plunderers of the Desert had little to gain by attacking me; and, unaccompanied as I was by guards or caravan, this precaution proved highly necessary. My two Bedouin guides were to meet me with the camels at San, the ancient Tanis, which is fifty miles from Damietta. This part of the journey it would have been unnecessarily fatiguing to have gone by land. The Lake Menzalè is only five miles distant from Damietta, and the voyage to San is commonly accomplished in two days.

The Consul and several Levantine merchants accompanied me to the Lake; and, after crowding my boat with several baskets of provisions and sweetmeats, which their kind ladies were good enough to prepare for me, I bid adieu to the Consul and his friends with feelings of regret, for I had experienced nothing but kindness and courtesy at their hands during my long stay in Damietta. I took with me a Levantine servant, who was only possessed of two ideas; one was, that a Greek Christian was worse than a Mahometan; the other, that clean linen was a European prejudice. He was a filthy fanatic.

The ancient geography of Menzalè, and its