mille piastres (de 325 à 750 francs). Le quart des enfants qui subissent cette opération ne survivent pas à ses suites; ceux qui conservent la vie sont condamnés à une existence étiolée et souffrante.

"Certes, s'il a jamais existé des crimes dont la société entière soit coupable, aucun, parmi eux, ne surpasse celui par lequel l'usage des eunuques a été créé et maintenu. L'esclavage a été activement attaqué de nos jours, non seulement par les philosophes, mais encore par les gouvernements, et l'Europe marche rapidement vers l'époque de son entière abolition; Mais l'usage des eunuques est un double outrage fait à la nature, une violation simultanée de ses lois physiques et de ses lois morales, et néanmoins, je ne sache pas que les nations qui sont à la tête de la civilisation moderne, et qui ont réuni leurs efforts pour faire cesser la traite des nègres, aient rien tenté pour détruire l'usage des eunuques. L'intervention Européenne si funeste aujourd'hui à l'empire Ottoman, qu'elle comprime sous le poids de mille intérêts politiques, dont la lutte sans issue l'énerve et le ruine; cette intervention aurait pu lui être utile, et bien mériter de l'humanité, en le dirigeant, en l'encourageant, en le soutenant dans ses réformes civilisatrices. Or, parmi celle-ci, l'une des plus louables eût été sans contredit l'abolition des eunuques. Pour l'honneur de l'Europe, je souhaite que les cabinets songent à l'obtenir du sultan et du vice-roi d'Egypte. Je suis persuadé qu'il leur soufferait d'exprimer à ce sujet leur désir philanthropique pour le voir promptement satisfait. Méhémet Ali, qui est connu pour sa docilité aux utiles et nobiles avis, mérite presque aussi précieux que la spontanéité des grandes idées, s'empresserait sans doute d'écouter leurs remonstrances, et l'Egypte ne serait bientôt plus le théâtre d'une pratique qui ne peut pas être tolérée par notre siècle."

The subject of the usages and manners of the modern Egyptians has been so ably and fully treated by Mr. Lane, that, though it constitutes one of the largest and most entertaining portions of the present treatise, we shall limit ourselves to a reference which the author makes to that gentleman's implied credulity in the processes of necromancy, and to an anecdote of Mehemet Ali, in connection therewith. After describing various Mussulman superstitions, as the belief in genii, or djinns, the evil eye, divination, &c., he proceeds to magic, and observes, that its exhibitions are pretty well confined at the present day to the imposture of necromancy. Sorcerers and sorceresses restrict themselves almost entirely to foretelling la bonne aventure; sometimes they evoke, in a cabalistic mirror formed of a spot of ink upon a piece of paper, the dead or the living, who are made visible to a child. chosen by him for whom the experiment is prepared. The child describes the images that the power of the magician causes to pass before him; and there are not wanting credulous people who depose to the exactness of the portraits which he traces aloud. Among the Europeans attracted by curiosity to these absurd scenes," says our author, "the English, above all, are induced to have faith in their results-results as marvellous, if they were true,

VOL. XXVII. NO. LIV.

BB

as those of animal magnetism. The exact and judicious author of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, Mr. Lane, describes with complacency the processes of Egyptian necromancy, and does not show himself at all sceptical in regard to their results." Now, we demur to this mode of arguing, and to the conclusion here attempted to be drawn-a conclusion which supposes a person's belief of a thing, if he does not express his disbelief. Would not the writer himself object to be scrutinized by this process of reasoning. Even taking it for granted that Mr. Lane does not declare his scepticism in respect of the success of these magical performances, what is the legitimate inference? Not surely that he believes in their miraculousness-but that they are a cleverly contrived piece of jugglery, and thus he estimates them at their due worth. Would it not have been somewhat puerile and beneath the dignity of an educated man to have given us his formal opinion as to whether they partook of the preternatural or not?

While the debasing influence of the most gross superstitions is widely spread throughout Egypt, not only among the Mussulman inhabitants, but also the native Jews and Christians, the viceroy is resolved to show in this respect the superiority of his intelligence, as he has done on several occasions. One instance may suffice. At the commencement of his reign, when his power was not yet established, a sort of sibyl made her appearance at Cairo, and gained a vast number of proselytes. It was given out that she had at her command a familiar spirit, whose very hand could be touched and mysterious voice heard in the dark. It was chiefly among the soldiers and their officers that she found her most zealous dupes and partizans. Mehemet Ali was anxious to know something more certain about this magician whose influence might become dangerous. He caused her, therefore, to be brought to the palace, and told her he desired to have some conversation with her genius. She consented to exhibit before him. It was night; the lights were extinguished in the mandarah, where the principal officers were assembled. Mehemet Ali had strictly warned his servants to bring a light immediately he should call for one. The sibyl evoked her spirit. The djinn answered; and his hollow voice, like that of a ventriloquist, seemed to issue from the wall. He gave his hand to the Pasha to kiss, when the latter, seizing it firmly, called instantly for lights. It was the hand of the magician herself; who, on perceiving the cheat discovered, implored his pardon. The bystanders, astonished at the boldness of Mehemet whom they looked upon as irreligious, began to murmur. The Pasha, after having reproached them for their base credulity, ordered the sibyl to be thrown into the Nile.

The officers manifested some unwillingness to execute the sentence, but Mehemet overcame their scruples by telling them, that if she really had so powerful a spirit at her service, he would take care she was not drowned: but that if, on the contrary, she had him not, she would be justly punished for having abused without fear the pity of the faithful.

The literature of the Arab race is one of the richest that ever existed; but the epoch of its splendour having passed away, it is of course now considered as defunct. The language indeed survives; but ignorance and helotism having enveloped those who employ it, they have lost with their independence the glorious and fruitful muse, which once inspired in them elevated thoughts, generous emotions, and a noble and dignified bearing. The works which flowed from the pens of the writers of Bagdad and Bassora are highly elegant, ingenious, and moral, Nearly the whole of the Arabic literature of the present day, however, is confined to some popular romances or tales handed down by tradition, which never tire in the repeating or the hearing. These tales, where prose and verse are blended together, celebrate the ancient Arab-life, the nomadic and pastoral existence of the Bedouin tribes. And inasmuch as they tend to throw light on the maners of these primitive people, the sturdy inhabitants of the desert, ey are not without interest. They are generally a series of rlike, chivalric adventures, built upon a dramatic intrigue, in ch the marvellous holds always a conspicuous place. The ipal of these romances is that of Abou-zeyd, which appears ave been written about the tenth century of our era. The other popular fictions are those of Antur, Ez-Zahir, and Delemeh. The adventures of Antar, the great hero of the Arab race, have been translated into several European languages, and therefore are well known. The romantic literature of the modern Egyptians has been lucidly treated by Mr. Lane, to whose work the curious reader is referred.

Chapter the seventh gives us a sketch of the other inhabitants of Egypt, as the Bedouins, the Osmanlees, the Cophts, the Jews, and Franks, &c. As Dr. Clot confesses to having had frequent opportunities of studying the character and the manners of the Bedouins, during several journeys which he has made in the desert, we are bound to place the greatest reliance on his portraiture of that singular race, which does not in the main, however, substantially vary from the descriptions of some other writers and travellers. He gives us an interesting episode of one of these excursions, with the citation of which we may gratify the reader: :

"At the time that the French evacuated Egypt, a part of the garrison

at Mansourah was attacked quite unexpectedly by the redoubtable Bedouins of Abou-Koura, a famous chief who had always resisted the power of the Mamelukes, and had now become master of the province. He inhabited a fortified village, called Mit-el-Hammer, six leagues south-west of Mansourah. In this skirmish, the Arabs carried off a young female, who became the wife of their chief, and who is known in the country under the name of the Signora. I had often heard speak of her, and wished very much to see her. In travelling in 1834 in the province of Charkyeh, I visited the village where she resides, and went to lodge at her house, which is a palace contiguous to other Arab dwellings. I was very well received by one of her sons. Knowing that I was French, he spoke to me of his mother. I expressed to him my desire to see her. My being a physician constituted a sufficient privilege; I was therefore conducted to her apartments. She saluted me in French, but I very soon recognised by her accent that she was Italian. I learnt that she was a native of Venice; that her father, a hat merchant, was called Bartholi, her mother, Marguerita, and herself, Julia ; that she had been united to a French lieutenant, named Dévaux; that, taken prisoner by the Bedouins at the sortie at Mansourah, she was thrown on the back of a horse which carried her across the sandy plains until at eventide she found herself in a spacious dwelling in presence of a man enveloped from head to foot in a large white mantle, who lavished upon her demonstrations of the most passionate tenderness, caused her to be stripped of her European dress, and clothed her himself with a vast robe in the Oriental fashion, gave her six hundred purses of jewels, (about the value of 100,000 francs), and a great number of slaves to attend upon her. This man was the puissant Abou-Koura. But all this luxury and blandishment served only to disconcert and trouble her; she wept incessantly, and supplicated by her gestures and lamentations to be restored to her own people. However, at the end of eleven months she was delivered of a son.

Maternal affection somewhat calmed

her imagination, and rendered her captivity more supportable.

"Her sidi, whom she loved much, and with whom she was accus. tomed to live, having died, she was constrained to espouse the brother of the deceased, who was far from entertaining for her the same regards as Abou-Koura. Four years afterwards, this man died also, leaving one daughter, Aphisa, aged about two years, and his wife enceinte with a son who was named Ali. Though she might often have had to suffer the bad treatment of her husband, the Signora lost much by his death ; for some greedy relations, taking advantage of the state of distress and helplessness into which she was plunged, succeeded, by force of intrigue, in appropriating the greatest part of the fortune of this family, already considerably diminished. Mansour, the eldest son, too young to defend the paternal heritage, was so affected at seeing it pass into other hands, that he has been insane ever since. His brother Ali is now the only support of this house once so colossal; it possessed forty-four villages, many thousand camels, numerous flocks, and more than five hundred slaves. Of these riches there is left but a feeble remnant, but sufficient nevertheless to maintain the family in ease and comfort.

"During the thirty-four years that the Signora had been in the harem, she had never been out of it, nor seen any other foreign man than myself. My presence excited in her the most lively emotion. I discovered that the love of country and the desire of liberty were not entirely extinguished in her heart. She saw me depart with the most poignant feelings, and I retired from her greatly moved. She has never beard any tidings of her family; she is ignorant as to whether the officer Dévaux was killed or not at the affair of Mansourah.

"In the abode of the Signora I saw all that Bedouin hospitality preserves of the patriarchal. The two repasts that I partook of there, were served up on a large circular mat (natte ronde). In the middle was an entire sheep, and around the borders were placed a great number of small dishes. The members of the family, the principal persons of the village, and myself, were the first to dine, squatted down upon our carpets, tearing with the fingers our bits of roast-meat, or kneading our Arab pilau into balls. We were replaced by others, and these again by the servants and the poor, of whom I counted sixty. What struck me particularly was, that the chief of the house did the honours of the table to the last; so that the poor had less the appearance of unfortunates on whom alms were being bestowed than of guests who had been invited. Moreover, this was not an act of ostentation; the hospitality of every day was the same."

With regard to the Osmanlees or Turks, pride and presumption are their moral characteristics. They entertain very singular ideas about Europeans. They are persuaded that we make war upon their religion, which it is our object to destroy, and that if we do not absolutely conquer the country they occupy, it is because our strength is not equal to our ambition. It is very difficult to make any of them comprehend our religious tolerance, and those political considerations which are the sole barriers under shelter of which the existence of the Ottoman Empire has been prolonged to the present day. There are but very few of them that have any clear idea of the position of Turkey with relation to Europe. The most part have no recollection of the numerous humiliating predicaments to which the Porte has of late years been subjected during its conflicts with Russia. There are some who are convinced that the kings of Europe humbly pay tribute to the Sultan.

Upon many points, it is true, the Turks are forced to acknowledge the superiority of the Europeans; but, on the whole, they regard them with a sentiment of pity mingled with disdain. It is curious to observe the manner in which they oftentimes receive a European of distinction. Though they welcome him with an appearance of polite consideration, by which a person is often deceived (who is not fully acquainted with the usages of oriental etiquette), yet the fact is, they do not condescend to rise at his