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into effect, that the provisions were transferred from the one ship to the other; but it was afterwards found necessary to abandon the project from the risk, the health, and safety of the people would run; and they left their second imprisonment of 319 days, together on their way home; reaching the Thames on the 21st October, 1823, after an absence of two years and a half.

As a supplement to this article, we beg leave to extract a passage replete with interest, as to the great object of the expedition.

"Several strangers arrived from a place called A-kōōd năk, which they all agreed in saying was five days to the N. W. These people brought most interesting information, which was, that in the preceding year, two very large ships resembling ours, had been wrecked at the above place; one still lay on her broad-side, the other was aground, but upright, and both, as far as I could learn, were dismasted. The Kabloonas, soon after being cast away, took to their boats, and put to sea. With the crew of one ship were two women, as we supposed, for they were described as having no breeches, but long clothes hiding their legs. The story of the strang ers was well told; but the strongest confirmation of their assertions, is, that they had sledges made of the painted rail-work of a ship, and a cross piece of one was composed of a head stave of a cask, on which "Bread" was painted, &c."

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With a party, who stated that they were going to the wrecked ships, Mr. Hoppner volunteered his services to set out for Akoodnak; which he accordingly did-but these uncertain savages having found plenty of food on their way, were in no hurry, and evinced no satisfactory design to proceed. In a few days, therefore, he found himself under the necessity of leaving them and returning.

One cannot help forming the impertinent, and no doubt unwarrantable notion, that some means might have been fallen upon, to secure guides for so important a purpose. To this, there is an unanswerable reply -that guides might have been got, but time could not be insured, as the hour of departure was rapidly approaching, and its arrival already very uncertain.

Scenes and Impressions in Egpyt and Italy, by the Author of Sketches of India, and Recollections of the Peninsula.-Lond. 1824. 8vo. pp. 452.

Of this writer, we may say as one does of a friend, we find him as we left him. Of his Recollections we presented some specimens on a former occasion, and bade him, what we then hoped would prove, a short adieu. So we delight to say it has proved. For here he comes through the Red Sea, and down the Nile, to tell us a few more of his lively impressions. The most un-traveller like writer we ever met with, in one who has made an unusual, if not strictly overland journey from India to England; the least prepared of all, who have of late come from the land of diggers, and dealers in granite, beetles, and sphinxes, and broken obelisks, and empty stone coffins, to tell us about them; and the most untutored dilletante, that ever groped in Pompeii, or lounged in the Coliseum, or rode in a gandola, -he is one of the most pleasing. Had he been educated to any learned profession, had he spent his improveable years in any pursuit, but the honourable one of arms, there is no imagining what he might not have aspired to, as an intellectual character.

We propose merely to select some of the passages, that have appealed more forcibly, than most writings of this sort do, to a portion of our nature, which, perhaps, we had better not attempt farther to identify, than by trying whether a corresponding impression will not be made upon our readers.

In an introductory note, we are informed, that he sailed from Bombay in an Arab vessel, on the 26th Dec. 1822; and that two other officers, bound for England, accompanied him. He mentions them every where with affection and respect; but they do not seem to have been quite in unison with his own character and turn of mind, or perhaps, as he afterwards informs us, company was inconsistent with the purpose, and nature of his enjoyments.

D

The following is the first paragraph of the subject matter of the volume.

"It was to the rude music of the small Eastern drum, the noisy symbal, and the lively tambowrine, that with the cry and the song of joy, and, with many a pause for clapping of the hands, and beating of the feet, the crew of our Arab vessel hoisted her one vast sail, which a gentle breeze from the land, after some heavy flappings of the canvas, at length filled, and wafted us, slowly and steadily from the palmy shores of India.

And soon afterwards,

"Our vessel was one, rude and ancient in her construction, as those which, in former 'and successive ages; carried the rich freights of India for the Ptolemies, the Roman Prefects, and the Arabian Caliphs of Egypt. She had indeed the wheel and the compass, and our Nakhoda, with a beard as black and long, and a solemnity as great as that of a magician, daily performed the miracle of taking an observation; but although these passing contrivances" of the Guiours have been admitted, yet they build their craft with the same clumsy insecurity, and rig them in the same inconvenient manner as ever."

For the information of those, who may chuse to follow the route of our author, we shall introduce his sketch of the interior of this vessel.

"Under the poop-deck is one cabin aft, with stern windows, and one forward, with two ports of a side-the after cabin was the harem: the starboard side of the larger was occupied by the son of the owner (a young Arab of Mocha), a respectable old Persian gentleman, and his son-a boy; the larboard side, without other separation than some trunks abaft, and the wheel forward (for they steered below) was our sorry birth. The poop presented a livelier scene; on the after part were four Bannians or Hindoo traders bound to Aden; on the starboard side forward, sat our grave Nakhoda, and the birth in which he slept. and from which, day or night, he seldom moved, &c.

Our passengers, all of whom were pilgrims, patiently and indolently reclined on their cots the whole day. They combed their beards, they read the Koran, they combed their beards again; they smoked, they sat cross-legged and motionless, looking on vacancy; they slept, but even in sleep looked a slow race, as if they willed nothing. Five times a day the more zealous, three times the more moderate, performed their devotions."-" We had little communication with them, from the difficulty of making ourselves understood, &c."

The crew were idle and well behaved, and stillness seems to have been the order of the day. The solitary exception to this was in the case of a woman, the wife of one of the passengers, whose voice was heard one evening abusing her master, after a fray had taken place among the crew, in which he had interfered; but so mysteriously secluded was the fair sex, that one of them had died, and had been committed to

the deep for two days, before our author knew anything about it. As the women were mixed, not even a husband entered their apartment.

Sailing thus pleasantly they enjoyed the "moonlight upon Osman's sea," and made progress in their voyage.

*

"It was a bright, a laughingly bright day, when, with a fair breeze, we sailed through the gate of tears, for so did the ancient Arabs name those narrow straits at the mouth of the Red Sea, regarded by their early navigators as so perilous, and so often, indeed, fatal to their inexperience. We had a sail in company here, and loud and joyous was the greeting between the crews, as we both cast anchor in a little bay, just within the lesser bay, by which we entered. From this anchorage, and indeed all the morning while making for, and passing the straits, we had the black lofty shore of Africa in view, with its cape of burials, for, to the fancy of the ancient Arab" the shrill spirit of the storm sat dim" upon the rocky brow of Cape Gua-dafric, and enjoyed the death of the mariner."

"We ran down upon Mocha with a full sail on the following morning; the town looks white and cheerful, the houses lofty, and have a square solid appearance, the roadstead is almost open, being only protected by two narrow spits of sand, on one of which is a round castle, and on the other an insignificant fort. A date grove adjoins the city, and extends nearly two miles along the Southern beach; a pleasing object for the eye to rest upon, which is fatigued if you! gaze in any other direction, by one unvarying practice of brown and desolate sterility."

He describes the seaports of Arabia, as presenting a striking contrast to those of India. You meet the Abyssinian with his curled woolly hair, dyed yellow, the stout Arab porter, bowing under a heavy load of dates, and the Bedouin, with his dull coloured and close dress, bare bosom and sinewy arm and leg, and fiery dark eyes, long strings of camels and asses, sheep, &c. and shops of every description are to be seen in the bazar. The houses are built of coral stone, and partly of sun-burnt brick. The upper room of that procured for the travellers, during their stay, had several small circular fan-lights, filled with very small panes of glass of many colours, which produced the fantastic effects of the kaleidoscope.

Our author paid his compliments to the Jews here, for whom manifests a very praiseworthy predilec

* Babelmandel

tion. He attended their synagogue. They are much despised at Mocha; but gain a livelihood as working goldsmiths, and (according to report) purveyors to the prohibited indulgence of the Mahomedan tiplers, in other words, as distillers.

The following is an old Arabian scene:

"The neighbourhood of a well, at even tide in Arabia, is no unpleasing scene; it is repose, perfect repose; the brimming troughs, the kneeling camels, the way-worn travellers. No animal looks so much at rest, or seems to enjoy it more than the kneeling camel, and no where does the tired wanderer throw out his limbs, or spread his arms behind his recumbent head, in a better posture for the full enjoyment of that indolently luxurious feeling, which follows upon fatigue, than the Arab driver. But think, reader, of a country where the waters are sold; here, at this brackish well, a sum is paid for the very horse, which is led forth to the draught, and for each water skin and pitcher there is a trifling charge."

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The Dowlah here was a slave in the family of the Imaum of Senna, upon which our traveller observes: Nothing is more striking in the character of slavery among the Arabs, Turks, and other Asiatics, than that it is a very common road to places of trust, dignity and power. How very different might be the fortunes of two African boys, torn from the same Savannah, and sold -one to our colonies in the west, and the other marched across the desert, to the slave marts of the east."

From Mocha, they hired a vessel to convey them to Kossier. They were thirteen days in reaching Djidda, where they were well received by Hussein Aga, a wealthy Turk, holding the appointment of agent both to Ali Pasha and the India Company. On one occa

sion he provided them a repast:

"And as he insisted on our having it after the European fashion, with a Table, Chairs, Knives and Forks, he did not join us, but left us to make ourselves comfortable, while he went to his evening Siesta. There were no less, I think, than fourteen dishes-seven in each large tray-soups, stews, plums, force meats, excellent pastry, preparations of milk, and a bowl of sherbert with raisins floating on its brim. We found most of the dishes very well dressed; made a very hearty dinner; there was a basin with a cullender, a servant with a ewer and towels; and after washing our hands, we again lounged, smoked and sipped coffee till the cool of the evening, when we walked out with an attendant janissary, going to see the bazar. At the corner of the lane leading into it, sat some merry coblers; they gave the good humoured smile, and the "taieeb." I know not how it is, I have remarked almost wherever I have travelled, that the cobler is a good tempered fellow. They are a family of men,

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