selves to ride on, and to make knives and a kind of needles, and small rough bladed axes. This forge is carried about without the smallest inconvenience, so that the Arabs even of this desert are better provided in this respect than the Israelites were in the days of Saul—

22. "Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel; for the Philistines said, lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears."-There appeared to be no kind of sickness or disease among the Arabs of the desert during the time I was with them; I did not hear of, nor see the smallest symptom of complaint, and they appeared to live to a vast age;

23. There were three people I saw belonging to the tribe in which I was a slave, namely, two old men and one woman, who, from appearance, were much older than any others I have seen; these men and the woman had lost all the hair from their heads, and every part of their bodies: the flesh on them had entirely wasted away, and their skins appeared to be dried and drawn tight over their fingers and bones like Egyptian mummies;

24. Their eyes were extinct, having totally wasted away in their sockets, the bones of which were only covered by their eyelids; they had lost the use of all their limbs, and appeared to be deprived of every sense, so that when their breath shall be spent, and their entrails extracted, they would, in my opinion, be perfect mummies without further preparation.

25. From their appearance, there was not sufficient moisture in their frames to promote corruption, and I felt convinced that the sight of such beings, (probably on the deserts of Arabia,) might have given the Egyptians their idea of drying and preserving the dead bodies of their relations and friends.

26. An undutiful child of civilized parents might here learn a lesson of filial piety and benevolence from these barbarians; the old people always receive the first drink of milk, and a larger share than even the acting head of the family, when they were scanty in quantity; whenever the family moved forward, a camel was first prepared for the old man, by fixing a kind of basket on the animal's back, they then put skins or other soft things into it to make it easy.

27. They then lifted up the old man and placed him care,

fully in the basket, with a child or two on each side, to take care of and steady him during the march, while he seemed to sit and hold on, more from long habit than from choice. As soon as they stopped to pitch the tents, the old man was taken from his camel, and a drink of water or milk given him, for they took care to save some for that purpose.

28. When the tent was pitched he was carefully taken up and placed under it on their mat where he could go to sleep. This man's voice was very feeble, squeaking, and hollow. The remarkable old man I am speaking of belonged to a family that always pitched their tent near ours, so that I had an opportunity of witnessing the manner of his treatment for several days together, which was uniformly the same.

29. After I was redeemed in Mogadore, I asked my master of what age he supposed him to have been, and he said eight Arabic centuries. An Arabic century is forty lunar years of twelve months in each year; so that by this computation he must have been nearly three hundred years old;

30. He also told me it was very common to find Arabs on different parts of the Great Desert, five centuries old, retaining all their faculties, and that he had seen a great many of the ages of from seven to eight centuries. He further said, that my old master from whom he bought me had lived nearly five centuries, though he was very strong and active; and from the appearance of a great many others in the same tribe, I could have no doubt but they were much older.

31. I then asked him how they kept their own ages, and he answered "every family keeps a record of the ages and names of its children, which they always preserve and pack up in the same bag in which they carry the Koran." -I told him that few people in other parts of the world liv ed to the age of two centuries and a half, and the people of those countries would not believe such a story.

Note. Morocco is an empire of Africa, between 28° and 36° north latitude; lying east of the Atlantic and south of the Mediterranean. America, the fourth grand divisior of the world, lies between 80° north and 56° south latitude. It is bounded north by the Frozen Ocean, east by the Atlantic, west by the South Sea, and south by the South Atlantic and South Pacific Oceans. The north and south divisions of America are connected by the isthmus of Da

rien. Panama, in 9° north latitude, forms the geographical separation between North and South America.

SIBERIA.

1. SIBERIA comprises all the north of Asia, and is one of the most forlorn and desolate regions on the globe. A great portion of it is included within the limits of the Frozen zone; and even the southern parts, from their physical structure and great elevation, are exposed to a great degree of cold.

2. Its situation also nearly excludes it from communication with the civilized and improved parts of the world. The rivers, of which the Oby, Enesei, and Lena, are among the largest in Asia, have generally a northern direction, flowing into the Frozen Ocean, the shores of which are barred by almost perpetual ice; and they, therefore, serve but little purposes of commerce.

3. Another characteristic feature consists in the immense elevated plains, which cover a great portion of its surface. These are of a dull uniformity of aspect, marshy, covered with long rank grass, and aquatic shrubs, and filled with almost numberless saline lakes.

4. The most important natural productions consist in its mines; the next in importance are its animals, some of which are valuable for fur, as the sable, black fox, ermine, and marten. In the northern parts the chief animal is the rein-deer.

5. It is a remarkable phenomenon, that about the Frozen Ocean, and in various parts of Siberia, there are found prodigious remains of animals, which do not now exist in any part of that region, and many of them not in any part of the world.

6. The most interesting of these relics are the remains of the Siberian mammoth, which was an animal of different species from the American mammoth. The skeletons are seldom found complete.

BETHLEHEM.

1. BETHLEHEM, six miles south of Jerusalem, contains only two or three thousand inhabitants. It is finely situated on a considerable eminence, in a fertile and a pleasant country, abounding in hills and valleys, covered with vines and olives.

2. Though never distinguished for great wealth or population, it became memorable for the birth of David, the royal Psalmist, and still more so for that of our Saviour; for which reason it has ever been regarded as a place of high renown, and as such is often visited by travellers and pilgrims.

3. The conspicuous and interesting edifices are a great convent and large church, connected with each other, enclosed with lofty walls, with battlements, resembling those of a vast fortress. They are situated on the outside of the town, and are erected over the cave of the nativity.

4. In this grotto is shown a small marble basin, which is affirmed to be the manger in which our Saviour was laid; and the cave is enriched with numerous gold and silver lamps, and adorned with pictures relating to the nativity and history of our Redeemer.

STROMBOLI.

1. THIS is the principal of the cluster of small islands, lying to the north of Sicily, named the Lipari Isles, the whole of which contain volcanoes. At a distance, its form appears to be that of an exact cone, but on a closer examination it is found to be a mountain, having two summits of different heights, the sides of which have been torn and shattered by craters.

2. The most elevated summit, inclining to the southwest, is about a mile in height. In this volcanic mountain, the effects of a constantly active fire are every where visible, heaping up, destroying, changing, and overturning, every instant, what itself has produced, and incessantly varying in its operations.

3. At the distance of one hundred miles, the flames it

emits are visible, whence it has aptly been denominated the light-house of that part of the Mediterranean Sea. From the more elevated summit, all the inner part of the burning crater, and the mode of its eruption, may be seen. It is placed about half way up, on the north-west side of the mountain, and has a diameter not exceeding two hundred and fifty feet.

4. Burning stones are thrown up at intervals of seven or eight minutes, ascending in somewhat diverging rays. While a portion of them roll down towards the sea, the greater part fall back into the crater; and these being cast out by a subsequent eruption, are thus tossed about until they are broken and reduced to ashes.

5. The volcano, however, constantly supplies others, and seems inexhaustible in this species of productions. Spallanzani affirms, that, in the more violent eruptions, tho ejected matter rises to the height of half a mile, or even higher, many of the ignited stones being thrown above the highest summit of the mountain.

6. The erupted stones, which appear black in the day time, have at night a deep red colour, and sparkle like fire works. Each explosion is accompanied by flames or smoke, the latter resembling clouds, in the lower part black, in the upper white and shining, and separating into globular and irregular forms. In very high winds from the south or south-east, the smoke spreads over every part of the isl and.

7. Spallanzani observed this volcano on a particular night, when the latter of these winds blew with great violence. The clear sky exhibited the appearance of a beautiful aurora borealis over that part of the mountain on which the volcano is situated, and which from time to time became more red and brilliant, in proportion as the ignited stones were thrown to a greater height. The violence of

the convulsions depends on that of the wind.

8. The present crater has burned for more than a century, without any apparent change having taken place in its situation. The side from which the ignited matter falls into the sea, is almost perpendicular, about half a mile broad at the bottom, and a mile in length, terminating above in a point. In rolling down, the lava raises the fine sand like a cloud of dust. While this was observed by Spallanzani, the volcano suddenly made an eruption.