TRANSLATION COMMITTEE.

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dilapidated appearance; and, if much used, would undoubtedly fall to pieces. But the excavation itself is a splendid work, and well worthy of the chivalrous sultan who executed it.

LXIX. Returning to the palace, we visited the apartments appropriated to the use of the Translation Committee, which is under the direction of a Frenchman and an Armenian, both of whom received us very politely. A number of young scribes, of various countries, were squatting about the rooms on divans and carpets, translating books or documents, or interpreting them to secretaries. The greater number, perhaps the whole of these young men, were Christians; or, if there were any Mohammedans among them, they were far from being rigid Islamites, as may be inferred from the following dialogue, which was interpreted to me by one of the interlocutors. A fakir, or beggar, resembling the Yoghi or Sanyasi of the Hindoos, walking into the apartment, began, in the usual way, to beg.

Fakir. There is no God but God!

me a trifle for the sake of God!

Bestow on

Seeing they took no notice of him, he approached nearer, and pointing up to heaven with his forefinger,

said :

God smileth on the face of the whole earth. God hath given you corn and wool. I pray you, give me some of what he hath bestowed on you: and may God then take you by the hand!

Kalavagi. (A Greek, I suspect.) Putting up

first three fingers, and then one, said:-There are three, and yet only One.

Aroutin Effendi. Well, but why do you not work to be like myself? You would then have no occasion to beg.

Fakir. I have forsaken the world, in order to devote myself to the greatest service of God; and we live by his permission. It is written!

Aroutin Effendi. A great deal of nonsense has been written. If we all followed your example, who would there be to weave cloth to conceal our nakedness?

Fakir (with emphasis). Some write, some draw the sword, and others guide the plough. There are also some to pray for others, and I am one of them. Give me a trifle!

Aroutin Effendi (smoking a pipe). Yes; but now I buy Gebeli (the best Syrian tobacco), and with the money which I pay the tobacconist, he purchases corn for himself and children. But you pray for me, and I pray for you.

Youssouff Effendi. If your prayers procure me good from God, will God do you good directly from himself, or through my money?

Fakir.

God rewards

God rewards charity. Charity is necessary towards salvation. God so wrote to our Prophet:- "La illah, ul Allah, wa Mohammed rasouli llahi!"*

Stephan Effendi. Our Fakirs tell us the same

"There is no God but God; and Mohammed is the prophet of God."

thing. You call our Fakirs giours, and they call you infidels. Whom are we to believe?

Fakir. Issaoui is also the Prophet of God. He told you the truth, but you crucified him. crucified him.

Christians practise charity?

Do not

Kalavagi, rather warmly. Issaoui is the only Prophet. He is the Son of God: and because he has instructed us to be charitable, we are so to all the world, but we give the preference to our own priests, and do not consider it incumbent on us particularly to support Musulman priests and mendicants.

Fakir. Is not God above, the only God? Kalavagi. He is the only God. But if you think, Sheikh, that he will assist people who do nothing, but call on his name, go to the Said, far from men, and pigeons will come and bring you bread.

Youssouf Effendi. Why do not you go to the Khasné (treasury) for money, because you pray every day for Sultan Mohammed Ali ?

Fakir, thunderstruck. What! Mohammed Pasha?-I pray for Sultan Mahmood; may the Prophet cover him with the hem of his garment!

a

LXX. We next proceeded to the printing-office, where the Cairo Gazette, in Arabic, is printed, small insignificant establishment, which would be no where remarkable but in such a country as Egypt. The press, the tympans, the galleys, the sticks, the balls, &c. were all of a very inferior description, and the forms appeared to be made up, in a slovenly way, upon the press itself. There were but few com

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positors or pressmen at work; but they all seemed rather expert and clever. The Arabic manuscripts, from which they were composing, written on one side only, were such as European compositors rarely meet with-extremely legible, the lines being wide apart, and the interlineations and corrections very carefully made.

LXXI. Having passed through the apartments where the diplomatic scribes and secretaries were at work, we entered the council chamber, where we were introduced to the President, a merry old Turk, who laughed and chatted with amazing volubility. The council, of which he was the chief, consists of a number of individuals, public officers and government clerks, who assemble daily for the despatch of business. This is what, in Europe, has been denominated the Senate, or Representative Assembly, or Parliament of Egypt; but it is a parliament of a very extraordinary kind. When the Pasha has any thing agreeable to do, he does it himself, without consulting this wretched council, who, he well knows, would not dare to entertain an opinion different from his; but when application is made to him for money, or some favour is demanded, which it might be inexpedient to grant and imprudent to refuse, he suddenly feigns a high veneration for the authority of his council, refers the applicants to them, and while he imperiously directs their decisions, shifts off the odium upon their shoulders. Such is the parliament of Egypt.

LXXII. The next object of our curiosity was the harem. It will not, of course, be supposed that we saw the ladies; it was an unusual favour to be allowed to enter at all into the female apartments; to see the rooms in which they usually sit, and the divans from which they had just risen to make way for us. Crossing a large gravelled court, we entered a spacious hall, divided into compartments by many rows of elegant columns. A grand staircase of white marble conducted us to the principal apartment on the first floor, which was in the form of a Greek cross, large, lofty, tastefully ornamented, with numerous noble windows commanding nearly the same prospect as the terrace near the divan. The drawing-room, where, when in Cairo, the Pasha usually sits, surrounded by his family, was finely matted, and furnished with a soft and beautiful divan of scarlet cloth, with a long blue silk fringe hanging to the floor, running round three sides of the apartment. A recess adorned with carved ornaments, and slender columns with gilded capitals, occupied the bottom of the room. Arabesques and landscapes, executed in the same style as those in the audience chamber, adorned the ceiling of this spacious apartment, which would be admired even in London. The bedchambers, offices, &c. were neat, and scrupulously clean, but contained nothing remarkable.

LXXIII. In a large apartment in this part of the palace we were shown the Pasha's children- to me the most interesting sight of all—a sight which made