As I became familiarized to my Tartar guide, I found his character disclose much better traits than his first appearance bespoke, and I began insensibly to think him a very entertaining fellow: perceiving that I was very low spirited and thoughtful, he exhibited manifest marks of compassion; and taking it into his head that I was actually removed for ever from my friends and my family, he spoke in a style of regret and feeling, that did great honour to his heart: and to say the truth, he did every thing in his power to alleviate my feelings, conversing with me, either by means of the interpreter, or in broken lingua franca, (a mixture of languages, peculiarly useful in travelling through the east); supplying all my wants cheerfully and abundantly; changing horses with me as often as I pleased, and going slow or galloping forward just as best suited my inclination or humour.

6

The first object he seemed to have in view on our journey, was to impress me with a notion of his consequence and authority, as a messenger belonging to the sultan. As all those men are employed by the magistrates of the country, and are, as it were, the links of communication between them, they think themselves of great importance in the state; while the great men whose business they are employed in, make them feel the weight of authority, and treat them with the greatest contempt: hence they become habitually servile to their superiors, and by natural consequence insolent and overbearing to their inferiors, or those who being in their power they conceive to be so. As carriers of dispatches, their power and authority wherever they go is in some points undisputed; and they can compel a supply of provisions, horses, and attendants, wherever it suits their occasions; nor dare any man resist their right to take the horse from under him to proceed on the emperor's business, be the owner's occasion ever so pressing.

My feelings, which I can tell you were altogether of the most unpleasant kind, served as a stimulus to my mind, and increased my anxiety to get forward; I therefore pushed on as fast as the horses, which were in general excellent, could

carry me and as we halted at a number of stages to get fresh horses and provisions, my Tartar guide had frequent opportunities of indulging his self-importance, and displaying his great authority and power. As soon as he stopped at a caravansera, he immediately called lustily about him in the name of the sultan, demanding with an imperious and menacing tone of voice, fresh horses, victuals, &c., on the instant. The terror of this great man operated like magic; nothing could exceed the activity of the men, the briskness of the women, and the terror of the children; for the caravanseras are continually attended by numbers of the very lowest classes of the people; but no quickness of preparation, no effort or industry could satisfy my gentleman; he would shew me his power in a still more striking point of view, and fall belabouring them with his whip, and kicking them with all his might. I must confess I was much hurt at this extravagant abuse of upstart power, and was two or three times on the point of interfering; but fortunately, recollected that it would neither be in character, nor have any good effect, and that if I presumed to speak, my guide would be obliged in my defence to give me a flogging in order to prevent suspicion.

• This inconsiderate tyranny and cruelty, I had afterwards reason to believe, was by no means a part of his natural disposition; but vanity, to which so many among us in Europe fall victims, urged him to excesses, which I dare say his heart privately condemned.

It was on the fifth or sixth day (I cannot precisely say which) after our leaving Aleppo, that we got to the city of Diarbeker, the capital of the province of that name, having passed over an extent of country of between 3 and 400 miles, most of it blessed with the greatest fertility, producing, in the few cultivated parts, grain, fruits of various kinds, and silk in great variety and abundance, and abounding with as rich pastures as I ever beheld, covered with numerous herds and flocks. The air was charmingly temperate in the daytime, but, to my feeling, extremely cold at night.

"Yet notwithstanding the extreme fertility of the country, the bad administration of the government, conspiring with

the indolence of the inhabitants, leaves it unpopulous and uncultivated. Diarbeker proper, called also Mesopotamia, from its lying between the two famous rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and by Moses PADAN ARAN, that is to say---The fruitful Syria; abounds with corn, wine, oil, fruits, and all the necessaries of life. It is supposed to be the seat of the earthly paradise, and all geographers agree that it was there the descendants of Noah first settled after the flood.

"The city of Diarbeker itself is situated in a delightful plain on the banks of the river Tigris, and nearly at its head; it is one of the richest, most trading, strong, and populous cities in Asiatic Turkey; and is adorned with many piazzas and market-places in the Turkish style, and a large magnificent mosque, formerly a Christian church; for Christianity flourished over this country so late as the 6th century. There is even now a sect, whose patriarch still resides here: and they shew on the road near the town, a chapel where the holy man Job is said to be buried. This city is supplied amply with water by a canal cut from the Tigris, and has many caravanseras on both sides of the river.

Few countries in the world exceed that about this city for natural richness and beauty:--the bread and wine are excellent -the fruit beyond conception delicious-and my friend the Tartar took care, under pretence of supercilious hauteur, to tear in pieces a couple of fowls, and hand to me now a leg, now a wing, till I made the most delicious repast I ever remember to have eat in my life.

It is computed that there are resident in this city no less than 20,000 Christian inhabitants, some of whom are of the church of Rome;--and perhaps it is owing to that mixture, that the fair sex have more freedom, and the men more politeness and affability, than those of any other city in the empire-the chief business there, is making that fine leather commonly called Turkey leather.

Figure to yourself, my dear Frederick, my Tartar guide, who was an admirable actor, sitting at a caravansera in state at his dinner, devouring excellent fowls, choice pillaws, and delicious fruit, in as great pomp as a bashaw; and in order

to keep up the semblance of authority over me, to favour my disguise, handing to me, who sat at a humble distance, a part of his provisions.----You may form to yourself an idea of the scene; but all efforts of the imagination must fall short of the manner, the figure, the words, the looks, and the actions of the Tartar; sometimes affecting contemptuous pity, sometimes the gentle blandishments of conscious superiority; and all in such a masterly style of performance, that I doubt whether Garrick himself, with all his powers of countenance, could outdo him. Critical though my situation was, and much as I was harassed with the corrosions of mental pain, the extravagant action and ludicrous pomposity of this man frequently overbore my prudence, and compelled me to laugh incontinently and loudly; -on all such occasions he would put his hands a-kimbo, draw up his eye-brows to his turban, screw down the corners of his mouth in the most rueful manner, and give a loud whew! with his eyes fixed in a stare at me, till entirely overcome with laughter, and ready to sink under it, I clapped my face between my hands, and, as well as I could, bowed in token of sorrow and submission; when threatening me vehemently, and at the same time uttering a lamentable expression of doubt that he was afraid he had had an idiot imposed on him, he would bustle about, direct the horses to be got ready, and order me to get on horseback, with many denunciations of severe treatment, and a thousand flourishes of his whip over my head.

As I have rode along musing upon the contemptible stratagems to which I was reduced, in order to get through this country, for no other reason but because I was a Christian, I could not help reflecting with sorrow on the melancholy effects of superstition, and regretting that that place, which in the times of primitive simplicity was called the terrestrial paradise; that place where God first planted man after the flood; where the godlike Abraham and the holy Job breathed the pure air of piety and simplicity; that place which from all those circumstances ought to be considered above all others as the universal inheritance of mankind, should now be cut off from all but a horde of senseless bigots, barbarous fanatics,

and inflexible tyrants. And I could not help considering with melancholy concern, the blindness and infatuation of men, who, less earnest to accommodate themselves than injure others, shut out their fellow-creatures from that which they themselves will not use, and, while they suffer millions of the richest acres in the universe to be untilled, and spend their sweetness in the desert air, with wicked jealousy, and envy more than diabolical, begrudge to others the little spot on which they stand, and chase them as they would a ravening tiger from their country.

'As we advanced towards the southward and eastward, in our way from Diarbeker towards Bagdad, I found the air became sensibly warmer, and observed that the disposition of the people grew more and more brutal. My guide's conduct (for he knew them well) became proportionately artful, and my manners were of course to grow so much the humbler. I observed, however, that his authority continued the same, and that he seemed to exert it with greater rigour; not in severity or chastisement, but in exacting implicit obedience. Yet still he evidently acted with great caution and circumspection; for, in some districts, he either avoided the little villages by a circuitous route, or dashed through at a very quick pace, while the gaping multitude considered us as on a dispatch of haste and importance-in others, he entered the towns without reserve, and left it to chance to decide whether we should be discovered or not. At some caravanseras he treated me with affected negligence, at others he made me eat with him and drink wine, of which, in some places, he himself drank copiously, and at others as scrupulously refrained from. And sometimes we lay at night out in the open air, rather than enter a town; on which occasions I found the weather as piercing cold as it was distressingly hot in the daytime. Bred, as the man was, a mixture of slave and tyrant, I can suppose some parts of this conduct to arise from caprice; but as he was naturally kind, as many of those aberrations from the usual mode of travelling were attended with hardship and inconvenience to himself, and as my servant and the other Tartar were clearly of opinion that he was right, I am rather