reverence for Mahomet and his faith. He paraded his troops through the streets of Cairo, with bands playing, and kept high festival in honour of the prophet. Soon after, the sheikhs wrote thus of their new conquerors :—

"The French are the friends of the Sultaun of the Osmanlies, and the enemies of his enemies. Prayer is said in the name of the sultaun. The coin bears the letters of his name. Religion is duly honoured. The French are true believers; they revere the prophet and the Koran; they have treated the pilgrims to Mecca with distinction; they have celebrated the rising of the Nile; and have contributed to the splendour of the birthday of the prophet. The French command us to inform you, that they are taking measures to secure all that is needed for the two sacred towns.'

Not long after, the people of Cairo revolted against the housetax, and other grievances, and caused some loss to the invaders before the revolt was quelled. The sheikhs were again ordered to write a letter to the people; in which they spoke of the charity of the great man to the poor, his respect for the religion, and concluded with the advice," Attend to your business, and do your religious duties, and pay the taxes." Napoleon himself addressed a proclamation to the people, which we extract entire:

"In the name of God, the Giver of mercy. Buonaparte, General-in chief of the French army, to the inhabitants of Cairo, great and small.

"Stupid and foolish men, who have no foresight of the end of things, have excited the inhabitants of Cairo to revolt. God has punished their wicked intentions and actions. The Holy One and the Almighty has commanded me to have mercy upon His creatures; submissive to His will, I have pardoned, although in an excess of anger, and much pained at this revolt. As a punishment, I have abolished the divan I had formed, and which would, in two months, have established order in the city. Your tranquillity since then has made me think no more of the crime of the guilty instigators of the revolt, and I meditate the creation of a new divan.

"Ulemas and sheriffs, inform the people, that no one betrays me with impunity: he that conspires against me, rushes to his own destruction; no one upon earth being able to save him, he will not escape the wrath of God, whose decree he will not observe. The man that is wise understands that all I have done has been put in execution by the order and will of God alone. A man must be blind, and a fool, to doubt it.

"Inform your people, also, that the Almighty has long ago destined me to annihilate the enemies of Islam, AND TO DESTROY THE CROSS. The Holy God has announced that I should come from the west, to Egypt, to exterminate those that commit injustice: the wise man sees in all the fulfilment of His designs. Inform your people that the Koran has predicted to many what has just happened, and that it contains predictions of what is to happen. The word of God, in His book, is true and just; the proof of this truth is, that the Mussulmen return to me with pure intentions and sincere friendship. Should any among them, through fear of my arms and power, dare to curse and to hate me, they are fools, that know not that God reads the heart, and discerns there what the eye cannot perceive. God will curse and punish the hypocrite, who shall betray me in secret, as well as openly.

"Inform them that I penetrate into the most hidden folds of the human heart. I know, at a glance, what men think, though they keep silence; a day will come, when all secrets shall be revealed. All that I have done, you know, has been

done by the will of God, which none can resist; a man may in vain seek to oppose what God has done by my hands. Happy such as are united in heart with me! Farewell.-Pp. 133, 134.

Such was the beautiful compound of pomposity and blasphemy with which Napoleon prepared his new subjects for his departure to the Syrian campaign. When he returned from before the walls of Acre, he told the oolemas that, much as they then hated the government of the French, "the time would come when they would unbury the bones of the French, to water them with their tears." All Napoleon's declarations in favour of Mahomet and his religion, failed in making the oolemas dupes of his words. "They are lies," said they, "which he propounds to establish himself in Egypt. Is he not a Nazarene, and the son of a Nazarene ?"

The illustrated books of the savans, their pictures of seas, of plains, of mountains, and all living things, filled with astonishment the mind of the journalist Gabarti; nor could he understand why the French, "if they find an animal which is not in their country, put it in a water which they know, which keeps it a long time from decay." The chemists, with their detonating-powder, Leyden-jar, and gases, were high magicians in Gabarti's eyes.

"The chemist lives in the house of Hassan Kiachef, the Georgian. I have seen there surprising things. They poured into a cup a water prepared, and then a few drops of another water; a smoke of different colours came out of the cup, and afterwards there remained no more water, but a yellowish stone, which they allowed us to touch. They took a quantity of white powder, and, striking it lightly on an anvil with a hammer, it produced a noise like the report of a gun; the chemist laughed at the fear which this caused us. He took a bottle, and, putting it empty into the water, he caused some air to enter it, and afterwards applying a lighted match, it caused an explosion. In short, we saw many curious results of the combination of elements. The physician turned round a wheel, which made sparks; on touching the bottle, there resulted an explosion; when the tip of the bottle is touched, a shock is felt; and if another person touches it, he feels it also. We have witnessed things quite incomprehensible to us."-P. 133.

There is so much truth in the following extract from the chapter on missionary schools in Cairo, that we must make room for it, previous to accompanying the writer across the desert to Petra::

"Pagan religions, as now existing, are transmissive sacerdotal systems which, in some inadequate measure, do interest the affections of the people, and, by force of hereditary associations, absorb successive generations of people into them. Now, the existing pagan systems are evidently in the way of the Gospel, and they must be combated. There is an evident power of fascination in them which firmly retains the mass of the people; and this must be broken. In order to do this, the modern missionary principle is, to educate children in schools in the usual scholastic attainments; let them once become proficients in school knowledge, and they will learn to despise the priestly yoke of their country and kindred. Hence a writer

upon modern missions, on being compelled to confess, with respect to the whole progeny that has passed through the mission schools, that they have not, it is true, become Christians,' comforts himself with saying 'but these their prejudices have been shaken, and the ground has been prepared.' That is, they have come out of the mission schools neither Hindoos, Mahometans, Parsees, or Christians, but a young fry without any religion at all. Now if this is to turn out, hereafter, to the glory of the Christian faith, one thing at least is clear, that the Apostles and their successors did not thus prepare the way for Christ's religion, by leading one generation through an introductory course of atheism, in order to the breaking up of the prejudices which might stand in the way of the Gospel's being received in the next. As if the fool who said in his heart, There is no God, were nearer to the Christian religion than the ignorant worshipper who, according to his light, feels after God, if haply he may find him."-Pp. 163, 164.

In March, 1840, Mr. Formby and his party placed themselves under the guidance of a fine weather-beaten and tolerablyhonest Arab sheikh, one Suluman Meughyn, who was to convey them across the desert to the convent of Mount Sinai, the rendezvous of the intended party to the tombs of Petra. The desert through which the caravan route to Suez lies, the now so wellbeaten road to the East, presents many features of that peculiar beauty with which the scenery of the desert is characterized. The desert is not the monotonous place we are apt to believe it to be. The confusion of rocks and ravines, of all hues and outlines, here and there the open cavities, dotted with palms, and ending in undulating slopes, tinged with green,-nay, even the very desolateness of the scene is far from monotonous, and, like a Skye terrier, is beautiful in its ugliness. The travellers passed the famous Hadji's Tree, on the borders of the sand, where the portions of the pilgrim's garments, hung up to celebrate their safe return from the holy city, recall the custom of the shipwrecked pagan of hanging up his reeking garments in the temple of the Ocean God.

"Me tabulâ sacer Votivâ paries indicat, uvida Suspendisse potenti

Vestimenta maris Deo."

It is a curious tree, in every respect,-a tree of innumerable small dry branches, on which not a green leaf has been seen for years, and annually blossoming with the parti-coloured tatters of the returning pilgrims. On arriving on the banks of the Red Sea, whilst the caravan went round the head of the water, the party, with the old sheikh, and some of his men, sailed across, and landed on the beach opposite Ain Mousa. The poor Bedouins were quite sea-sick, and, as a wave crested a little whiter than usual, looked grave, and muttered “Howadji el djemet taieeb,"-the camel is better.

The convent of St. Catherine, where the travellers united their party, is imbedded, as it were, in the valley of Sinai, amid almost countless relics of the eventful wanderings of the

children of Israel. At the very entrance of the valley, tradition points out the rock on which Aaron stood when Israel would not wait for Moses, and murmured-" As for this fellow, we know not what has become of him." Near this is the traditional burying-ground of those whom the pestilence slew for this their rebellion; whilst a little further, a stone, naturally hollowed out, is regarded as the crucible in which Aaron melted down the gold of the Israelites to form the molten calf. Within this valley, too, is the traditional stone on which Moses cast down the tablets of the law, in his anger.

"We then advanced," says the writer, "and, leaning still to the left, entered an entirely different valley, in which there seemed to be an abundance of water, from the unusual luxuriant growth of both the olive and palm-trees. In a little time we came to a large mass of stone, about

which a number of small fragments were lying, which, we were told, was the stone from whence Moses obtained the water. If this, therefore, be true, we were in the Valley of Rephidim, where was gained the first victory over the Amalekites, the first battle fought by the people after they had left Egypt. I am always sorry to doubt an old tradition, which, in this instance, is supported by the concurrent testimony of the Arabs, who greatly venerate this spot, and does not, therefore, rest entirely on the sole credit of an old monastic legend. But, as you will see hereafter, there is too much reason to question it. It is quite true that the orifices pointed to as those from which the water flowed, are remarkable enough: and, whatever becomes of the tradition respecting it, as the rock in the Valley of Rephidim, I question whether another stone, so remarkably consonant to the history assigned to it, could be found in the whole world. I certainly never saw one."-Pp. 231, 232.

Doubtless there is much credulity, and more error, in the monkish legends, especially in the East; still there is seldom any harm, and, generally, much piety in this belief. Now-a-days

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we can believe nothing. Not content with this as applied to modern facts, we are never satisfied until we have rooted up all old traditions, and proved their error, by rɛ and yɛ criticism, or by proving the spot in question to be actually a hundred yards or so out of its place. Every book of travels slaughters some old tradition or theory, and where is the benefit? Does it benefit us to prove that a black stone in the valley of Sinai was not the judgment-seat of Moses? Are we one whit the better Christians for all our accurate biblical geography, than our ancestors, who almost believed in Sir John Mandeville? These traditions, it is replied, have been perverted to a bad end; pilgrimages sprang from them, and the devotee risked life and happiness to reach a spot where the traditional event never could have occurred. Be it so. The pilgrim's devotion was not lessened by the traditional error. His object may be a mistaken one-at least it deserves, it commands respect. The modern traveller seeks the same places to while away his time, or to cavil at the traditions of the place. His is a different mode of seeking happiness to that of the pilgrim; both are equally successful,-the one dispels his ennui, the other satisfied his devotional feelings. The scientific traveller is also but a pilgrim, his god is knowledge, and the shrines of his god are everywhere, and in all places, so are his wanderings and pilgrimages. To the monks, who generally reside near these traditional localities, our curiosity-prompted wanderings are inexplicable; and there was much truth in the monk's objecting to the travellers entering the convent church, because the service was performing, as if it was something utterly uninteresting to the curiosity-seeking Frank.

On their arrival at Akaba, the travellers had a specimen of Arab cunning, owing, perhaps, to the attempt, on the part of their messenger, to deceive the sheikh, who was to be their guide and protector to Petra. The messenger represented the party as that of an European consul; but, as no one was prepared to accept the sheep which the sheikh humbly led into the encampment, the old Arab discovered the trick, and recompensed them for their folly. The consequence was, most exorbitant charges, and less respect than they otherwise would have experienced. We have already occupied so much space, that we cannot follow Mr. Formby on his route to Petra, or ramble with him in that Enigma of Enigmas, the city of the tombs. To give, however, some idea, not of the tombs themselves, for they have been so often sketched and described since Burckhardt first visited them, but of the scenery of this locality we will extract two engravings, and a short description of the new track struck upon by one of the travellers, in his wanderings about the valley of Wadi Mousa :