heart fimply and without the shadow of disguise, anď leave me to weep over it, as I now do, no matter whether from joy or forrow."

April 19th, 1770.

ALAS! how do I every moment feel the truth of what I have fomewhere read, "Ce n'eft pas le voir, que de s'en fouvenir ;" and yet that remembrance is the only fatisfaction I have left. My life now is but a perpetual converfation with your fhadow-the known found of your voice ftill rings in my ears-there, on the corner of the fender, you are standing, or tinkling on the piano-forte, or ftretched at length on the fofa. Do you reflect, my dearest friend, that it is a week or eight days before I can receive a letter from you, and as much more before you can have my anfwer; that all that time I am employed, with more than Herculean toil, in pushing the tedious hours along, and wishing to annihilate them; the more I ftrive, the heavier they move, and the longer they grow. I cannot bear this place, where I have spent many tedious years within less than a month fince you left me. I am going for a few days, to fee poor N, invited by a letter, wherein he mentions you in fuch terms as add to my regard for him, and exprefs my own fentiments better than I can do myself. "I am concerned," fays he, "that I cannot pafs half my life with him; I never met with any one who pleafed and fuited me fo well: the miracle to me is, how he comes to be fo little spoiled, and the miracle' of miracles will be, if he continues fo in the midst of every danger and feduction, and without any advantages but from his own excellent nature and underflanding. I own I am very anxious for him on this account, and perhaps your inquietude may have proceeded from the fame caufe. I hope I am to hear when he has paffed that curfed fea, or will he forget me thus in infu_ lam relegatum? If he should, it is out of my power to

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retaliate." Surely you have written to him, my dear Bonftetten, or furely you will! he has moved me with thefe gentle and fenfible expreffions of his kindness for you are you untouched by them?

You do me the credit, and falfe or true it goes to my heart, of afcribing to me your love for many virtues of the highest rank. Would to heaven it were fo! but they are indeed the fruits of your own noble and generous understanding, which has hitherto ftruggled against the stream of cuftom, paffion, and ill-company, even when you were but a child; and will you now give way to that fream when your ftrength is increased? Shall the jargon of French sophisfts, the allurements of painted women comme il faut, or the vulgar careffes of proftitute beauty, the property of all who can afford to purchase it, induce you to give up a mind and body by nature diftinguished from all others, to folly, idleness, difeafe, and vain remorfe? Have a care, my ever amiable friend, of loving what you do not approve. Know me for your most faithful and most humble defpote.

May 9th, 1770."

I am returned, my dear Bonftetten, from the little journey I made into Suffolk, without anfwering the end propofed. The thought that you might have been with me there has embittered all my hours: your letter has made me happy, as happy as fo gloomy, fo folitary a being as I am is capable of being made. I know, and have too often felt the difadvantages I lay myself under, how much I hurt the little intereft I have in you, by this, air of fadnefs fo contrary to your nature and prefent enjoyments: but fure you will forgive, though you cannot fympathize with me. It is impoffible for me to diffemble with you; fuch as I am I expofe my heart to your view, nor wish to conceal a fingle thought from your penetrating eyes. All that

you

you may fay to me, efpecially on the fubject of Switzerland, is infinitely acceptable. It feels too pleafing ever to be fulfilled, and as often as I read over your truly kind letter, written long fince from London, I ftop at thefe words: "La mort qui peut glacer nos bras avant qu'ils foient entrelacés."

GRAND CAIRO.

[From Sonnini's Travels in Egypt.]

To fuppofe Cairo, in Arabic Maff, refembling one

of our large cities in Europe, would be to entertain a very erroneous idea. The houfes have neither the form nor elegance of ours. The ftreets are very narrow, unpaved, and the houses that form them not ranged in a line. The fquares, vaft irregular places, without any buildings that adorn them, without any work of art to point out and embellifh the centre, are most of them immenfe bafins of water during the inundation of the Nile, and fields, or gardens, when the river has retired to its bed. Crowds of men of various nations, post through the streets, joftle one another, difpute the way with the horfe of the Mameluc, the mule of the man of the law, the numerous camels which fupply the place of coaches, and the affes, which are the most common beaft of the faddle.

This city, much longer than broad, covers a space of about three leagues. Turks, Mamelucs, Greeks, Syrians, Arabs, Cophts, Moors, Jews, and Europeans, inhabit it; and its population may be eftimated at four hundred thousand fouls. Inhabitants of another kind had likewise taken up their abode in the midft of this confufed multitude of various nations. The terraces of the houfes were covered with kites and crows, who, lived there in perfect security, and whose sharp screams' and hoarfe croakings mingled with the tumult of a reft

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lefa

lefs and noify populace. The difgufting vulture, the vultur percnopterus of naturalifts, the ak bobas (white father) of the Turks, the Pharaoh's hen of the Europeans, added to this fingular and melancholy fociety. Living only on reptiles and the produce of laystalls, this filthy bird happily wants courage to attack more interefting objects. The plaintive and amorous turtle has no more to fear from its talons than from the guns of the inhabitants, into whofe dwellings the enters, giving them practical, but ufelefs leffons of love and tenderness, in the careffes and attention of domeftic happiness.

The splendour and prodigality of luxury were here contrafted with the rags and nakedness of want; the exceffive opulence of thofe who bear the rule, with the frightful poverty of the moft numerous clafs.

The

riches that trade conferred on the intermediate clafs were buried, or carefully concealed. Men who had acquired wealth dared not make use of it, except clandeftinely, left they fhould tempt the unbridled covetoufnefs of power, and expofe themselves to extortions, which a barbarous government fanctions under the name of avanies, and which, in fpite of all their fecrefy and caution, they cannot always escape.

With whatever external fplendour these men in power were clothed, they were not in reality lefs ignorant and favage. Though the garb was that of luxury, it was not the lefs the vefture of the most complete barbaroufnels; and if this appeared ftill more hideous and ferocious in a populace exceedingly vile, it was only because here it was naked, and the eyes were not deceived by the glofs of magnificence. At Cairo a few arts were exercifed by foreigners, mechanical occupations were far from a ftate of perfection, and the fciences were abfolutely unknown. The two extremes approached each other in more points than one. The beys were equally ignorant, equally fanatic, equally fuperftitious, with the rude dregs of the people. Not one of either could read or write; the knowledge of letters

letters and of writing was reckoned a very great art, and, with that of arithmetic, was confined to the merchants and people of bufinefs. On the other hand, the Mahometan priefts, bewildered in the gloomy labyrinth of fchool-divinity, bufied themfelves in attempts to understand and comment upon the reveries of the Koran. The sciences cultivated in the capital of Egypt went no farther; and to endeavour to extend their limits would have been a dangerous and ufelefs enterprife. Any thing beyond this would have been deemed a crime; and knowledge would have been ftifled for ever, had not the French undertaken to emancipate it from its fhackles, and favour its difplay; for, according to the philofophical reflection of Volney, where knowledge leads to nothing, nothing is done to acquire it, and the mind remains in a state of barbarism *.

In fact, the mafs of the people in no place could be more barbarous than at Cairo. Foreigners, perfecuted, and even ill-treated under the moft frivolous pretexts, lived there in perpetual fear. The French had feveral mercantile houfes there; and occupied a fmall district, hut up by a large gate, which was guarded by janizaries. 1 fhall obferve, by the way, that the city was divided into separate quarters in this manner. The Europeans called thefe divifions, thefe enclosures, countries; and that to which the French were confined, and where they were more than once befieged, was called the country of the Franks. Here our countrymen, remote from all means of protection and affiftance, spent days embittered by perpetual anxiety. If the fuccefs. of their commercial enterprifes diffufed a temporary fatisfaction among them, the profpect of an avanie perpetually before them foon checked it; and the fums of money or prefents, with which they were forced to purchase an insecure tranquillity, from the almoft daily

Voyages en Egypte & en Syrie. Etat politique de l'Egypte.

changes