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whole of Upper Egypt. The climate is intensely hot, but healthy in the course of five weeks, not one case of disease was observed. The small-pox is the plague of this country: the real plague is hardly known there. They are an handsome race; and the women are virtuous in spite of their vicinity to Upper Egypt, where licentiousness knows no bounds. The people are kind, civil, curious; in some parts not inhospitable. Pilfering is so uncommon among them, that any person convicted of such a crime would be expelled from his village by the unanimous voice of its inhabitants. Great numbers of the Nubians are employed as porters at Cairo, on account of their honesty.

The other tour contained in this volume is from Daracu, in Upper Egypt, through Berber, Shendy, and Taka, to Souakiin, a port on the Red Sea, which he crosses to Jidda. He sets off in the caravan, without a servant, and upon an ass. The following is the account of his appearance and preparations.

I was dressed in a brown loose woollen cloak, such as is worn by the peasants of Upper Egypt, called Thabout, with a coarse white linen shirt and trowsers, a Lebde, or white woollen cap, tied round with a common handkerchief as a turban, and with sandals on my feet. I carried in the pocket of my Thabout, a small journai book, a pencil, pocket-compass, pen-knife, tobacco purse, and a steel for striking a light. The provisions I took with me were as follows: forty pounds of flour, twenty of biscuit, fifteen of dates, ten of lentils, six of butter, five of salt, three of rice, two of coffee beans, four of tobacco, one of pepper, some onions, and eighty pounds of Dhourra for my ass. Besides these I had a 'copper boiler, a copper plate, a coffee roaster, an earthen mortar to pound the coffee beans, two coffee cups, a knife and spoon, a wooden bowl for drinking and for filling the water skins, an axe, ten yards of rope, needles and thread, a large packing needle, one spare shirt, a comb, a coarse carpet, a woollen cloth (Heram) of Mogrebin manufactory for a night covering, a small parcel of medicines, and three spare water skins.

'I had also a small pocket Coran, bought at Damascus, which I lost afterwards on the day of the pilgrimage, 10th of November 1814, among the crowds of Mount Arafat,-a spare journal book and an inkstand,-together with some loose sheets of paper, for writing amulets for the Negroes. My watch had been broken in Upper Egypt, where I had no means of getting another. The hours of march noted down in the journal, are therefore merely by computation, and by observing the course of the sun.

'The little merchandize I took with me consisted of twenty pounds of sugar, fifteen of soap, two of nutmegs, twelve razors, twelve steels, two red caps, and several dozen of wooden beads, which are an excellent substitute for coin in the southern countries. I had a gun, with three dozen of cartridges and some small shot, a pistol, and a

large stick, called nabbout, strengthened with iron at either end, and serving either as a weapon, or to pound the coffee beans, and which, according to the custom of the country, was my constant companion. My purse, worn in a girdle under the Thabout, contained fifty Spanish dollars, including the twenty-five, the price of my camel, and I had besides sewed a couple of sequins in a small leathern amulet, tied round my elbow, thinking this to be the safest place for secreting them. pp. 167, 168.

The meanness of his appearance excited the contempt of the whole party, and seems to have subjected the traveller to a great deal of unnecessary hardship. He was often driven from the coolest birth into the burning sun; and, besides the exposure to heat, had his dinner to cook. In the evening, after the enormous fatigues of the day, the same labour occurred again. He was obliged to cut and fetch wood; to light a fire to cook; and, lastly, to make coffee, as a bribe to keep his friends in good humour. After some danger from whirlwinds, and from failure of water, Mr Burckhardt arrives at Berber, where he makes some stay; and from thence proceeds in the route we have already pointed out. One of the most entertaining circumstances he rclates, is the disgust and horror his appearance universally excited in all the towns of Africa.

'The caravan halted near the village, and I walked up to the huts to look about me. My appearance on this occasion, as on many others, excited an universal shriek of surprise and horror, especially among the women, who were not a little terrified at seeing such an outcast of nature as they consider a white man to be, peeping into their huts, and asking for a little water or milk. The chief feeling which my appearance inspired I could easily perceive to be disgust; for the Negroes are all firmly persuaded that the whiteness of the skin is the effect of disease, and a sign of weakness; and there is not the least doubt, that a white man is looked upon by them as a being greatly inferior to themselves. At Shendy the inhabitants were more accustomed to the sight, if not of white men, at least of the lightbrown natives of Arabia; and as my skin was much sun-burnt, I there excited little surprise. On the market days, however, I often terrified people, by turning short upon them, when their exclamation generally was" Owez billahi min es-sheyttan erradjim "—" God preserve us from the devil!" One day, after bargaining for some onions with a country girl in the market at Shendy, she told me, that if I would take off my turban and show her my head, she would give me five more onions; I insisted upon having eight, which she gave me; when I removed my turban, she started back at the sight of my white closely shaven crown; and when I jocularly asked her whether she should like to have a husband with such a head, she expressed the greatest surprise and disgust, and swore that she would rather live with the ugliest Darfour slave. pp. 376-7.

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We cannot avoid presenting our readers with the following Eastern character, as drawn by Mr Burckhardt.

"

The principal among them, and who became the head of our mess, Hadji Aly el Bornaway, had travelled as a slave-trader in many parts of Turkey, had been at Constantinople, had lived a long time at Damascus, (where many Tekayrne serve as labourers in the gardens of the great), and had three times performed the Hadj: he was now established at Kordofan, and spent his time in trading between that place and Djidda. His travels, and the apparent sanctity of his conduct, had procured him great reputation, and he was well received by the Meks and other chiefs, to whom he never failed to bring some small presents from Djidda. Although almost constantly occupied, (whether sitting under a temporary shed of mats, or riding upon his camel on the march), in reading the Koran, yet this man was a complete bon vivant, whose sole object was sensual enjoyment. The profits on his small capital, which were continually renewed by his travelling, were spent entirely in the gratification of his desires. He carried with him a favourite Borgho slave, as his concubine; she had lived with him three years, and had her own camel, while his other slaves performed the whole journey on foot. His leathern sacks were filled with all the choice provisions which the Shendy market could afford, particularly with sugar and dates; and his dinners were the best in the caravan. To hear him talk of morals and religion, one might have supposed that he knew vice only by name; yet Hadji Aly, who had spent half his life in devotion, sold last year, in the slave market of Medinah, his own cousin, whom he had recently married at Mekka. She had gone thither on a pilgrimage from Bornou by the way of Cairo, when Aly unexpectedly meeting with her, claimed her as his cousin, and married her: At Medinah, being in want of money, he sold her to some Egyptian merchants; and as the poor woman was unable to prove her free origin, she was obliged to submit to her fate. The circumstance was well known in the caravan, but the Hadji nevertheless still continued to enjoy all his wonted reputation.' pp. 364-366.

There is a striking description of a storm in the desert, at p. 385, and another very pleasing picture of the scenery, in emerging from the desert into a rich scene of cultivation, p. 367.

The principal articles from Egypt through Berber to Shendy, and so on to Sennaar, Kordofan, and Darfour, are the sembil and mehleb, the former a perfume and medicine, Valeriana celtica, the other a condiment, the fruit of a species of tilia. In addition to these are imported soap, sugar, beads, coral, paper and hardware. The returns from the south and south-eastern parts of Soudan to Egypt, through Berber and Shendy are, grain, gold, (of which latter article the principal market is Raselfil, a station in the road from Sennaar to Gondar, four days from the former), ivory, musk, cbony, leather, coffee, fruit, honey,

and, above all, slaves. The account of the internal African slave trade is full and interesting. Mr Burckhardt calculates the number of slaves sold annually in the market of Shendy at about five thousand; of whom 1500 are for the Egyptian, and 2000 for the Arabian market,-the rest for the Bedouins, who live near the Red Sea, and for Dongola. Those brought to Shendy by Kordofan and Darfour merchants, are from idolatrous countries, from 20 to 40 days south of Darfour. The treatment of slaves is accompanied with the usual circumstances of horror and atrocity. The great manufactory which supplies all European, and the greater part of Asiatic Turkey, with the mutilated guardians of female virtue, is at a village near Siout, in Upper Egypt, chiefly inhabited by Christians. The operators are two Coptic Monks. According to the most moderate calculation, the number of slaves actually in Egypt is 40,000. During the plague, in the spring of 1815, 8000 slaves were reported to the Government to have died in Cairo alone. The number of slaves imported from Soudan to Egypt bears, in the estimation of this traveller, a very small proportion to those kept by the Mussulmans of the southern countries. The Atlantic slave trade he considers as quite trifling to that carried on in the interior; the only cure of which will be the improvement and civilization of the Negro, and the cultivation of those arts which will render him the rival, rather than the prey, of his Mussulman neighbour. Superstition commonly debases and degrades mankind; but, at first, it in some instances contributes to their civilization, In the most despotic countries, the power of the priest is often the only check to tyranny. The Uhlenia in Turkey is a power which the Grand Signior is forced to respect. Two Fakeers, says Mr Burckhardt, conducted the caravan in safety through districts inhabited by ferocious tribes, whom it would have been impossible, without the sanction of their sacerdotal presence, to have approached.-The country people came in crowds to kiss their hands as the caravan passed, alarmed lest the Fakeers, from any absence of customary respect, should withhold the due supplies of rain, and curse their lands with barrenness.

A dreadful picture is drawn, in these Travels, of the Africans: they are treacherous, false, vindictive, intemperate, cruel; marked with every vice which can degrade the human character. Mr Burckhardt lived long among them; had great means of observing; and appears to be in general so moderate, and guarded in his assertions, that his statements necessarily obtain credit. It must, however, be observed, that he always appeared among the Africans as a very poor man.-A mendicant who was to

travel from Northumberland to Kent, and was to run the gauntlet of jailors, constables, and justices, would not, perhaps, form the most exalted notions of the English character. Not the least interesting account is that of the pilgrims' route, who, from every part of Africa, hasten to perform their religious duties at Mecca. From Darfour, Sennaar, Kordofan, Bergamee, Borgoo, and every part of Soudan, true believers hasten to the tomb of the Prophet; and to secure for themselves that distinction which always characterizes those who have performed this great duty of the Mahometan faith.

In the Appendix is given an Itinerary from the frontiers of Bornou, by Bahr el Ghasal and Darfour, to Shendy, as collected from an intelligent Arab at Mecca. All reports agree that there is a great fresh-water lake in the interior of Bornou; the name of the lake is Nou, and from it the country derives its name, the Land of Nou. In this Itinerary, the river Shary is alluded to, as big as the Nile. Among the Negro tribes, the greatest is the tribe of Fellata. They have spread across the whole continent; and one of them whom Mr Burckhardt saw at Mecca told him, that his encampment, when he left it, was in the neighbourhood of Timbuctoo. The Fellata have attacked and pillaged both Bornou and Kashna. Upon, the celebrated question respecting the Niger, this work contains little or no information, except vague assertions of the natives, that the Nile and the Niger are the same river. On this subject it is surely better to wait for further information, than to build up dull theories of geography, which can confer no fame on the author, and convey neither amusement nor instruction to the reader.

ART. VI. Memoirs of RICHARD LOVELL EDGEWORTH, Esq. -Begun by Himself, and concluded by his Daughter MARIA EDGEWORTH. 8vo. 2 vols. London, 1820.

TH

HOUGH we have as much veneration for the name of Edgeworth, as for any that graces our modern literature, we confess we thought two octavo volumes rather more than could be required to tell all that the public would care to know of the individual who is here commemorated; and took up the book with some prepossesion against that lavish scheme of biography, by which both great and small names in our history have been lately overlaid. On the whole, however, though we still think the book a good deal too long, we have been agreeably disappointed; and can safely recommend it as being, on the whole, very entertaining, and containing much more than the usual