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LETTER XXX.

TO DR. JAMES JOHNSON.

MY DEAR SIR,

Damietta, May 16, 1827.

I CAME to Damietta, with the purpose of remaining two or three days, and here have I been for three months. The Vice-consul, in whose house I reside, is a native of Syria, the head of his nation, a man of considerable erudition, and better versed in Arabic literature than, perhaps, any one in the country.

The society of such a person, you may conceive, was one great inducement to remain so long as I have done; but, perhaps, the principal cause of my detention, was my great reputation as a hakkim, amongst the Levantine merchants, who form, in Damietta, a very numerous and respectable body. The fame of an amputation of the shoulder, which I performed in Alexandria, had

GRATITUDE OF THE LEVANTINES.

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spread to Damietta, so that, on my arrival, I was hailed as a little demigod in physic. In no place was I ever treated with so much respect; and, indeed, in no part of the East did I ever receive so many marks of gratitude. One lady presented me with a splendid silk dress of her own embroidering; another with a Cachemire shawl; another with several beautiful handkerchiefs of her own working; an old merchant with a bale of tobacco, and another with a number of Syrian dresses and several pieces of Damascus silk.

You may see I was in high favour with these good people; and you may conceive to what a state surgical science is reduced in Damietta, when I inform you that the simple operation of tapping had not, in modern times, been performed there before I did it.

The Levantines keep their women immured like the Turks, and suffer them not to go abroad unveiled. I was, however, a privileged person; and had access to every harem. There are no women in Egypt to be compared with the Levantines for beauty; and, if the affections of a youthful hakkim were not wholly fixed on "the

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philosophy of physic," his heart would be in danger in Damietta.

Signore Surur, the Consul, is the private friend and counsellor of the Governor, who is married to a niece of the Pacha. With this great Turk I am in the habit of dining almost daily, either at his house or at Surur's. At the latter's, a party of seventy Turks sat down, a few evenings ago, to the most magnificent banquet I ever witnessed in the East. One hundred and thirty dishes of various sorts, fish, flesh, soups, sweets, fruits, &c. were set down and removed in succession. The head of the religion, and several priests were present, which Surur considered as no small honour to a Christian.

The soldiers and servants of the guests had also to be entertained in another apartment, and of these there were no less than one hundred : and what I considered as a still greater hardship than the necessity of entertaining these menials, was the obligation of paying each of them for the trouble of gormandizing at Surur's expense. After dinner there was a band of Arab music sent into the apartment: I counted seven different instru

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ments, and one, like a fiddle with two strings, "discoursed such excellent music" that it drew tears of ecstasy from many eyes. Nothing is more singular, at first, than to hear the moans of the Arabs at "the dying fall" of their impassioned notes. They are, perhaps, the people most truly devoted to music, and the most deeply affected by its melody of any in the world. Surur has often said to me, "You are superior to us in every thing but in music and poetry." He was well acquainted with our music and with Italian poetry, and being a man devoid of prejudice, except that which every man possesses a partiality for his native land, I respected his opinions. I saw the Arabs in Cairo, who were delighted with the tactics of the French, put their hands to their ears when the French band struck up a very spirited air; every thing else they could endure, but the music of the Franks was too much for their ears. Many of their songs, which horrified me at first, at length became agreeable; and, such is habit, that I protest there are half a dozen of their airs which I now prefer to many of Rossini's.

After the music at Surur's banquet, two buffoons

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were introduced, who played all sorts of ridiculous tricks, and who had their eyebrows scorched, and some gunpowder set fire to underneath them when they were in the act of sitting down, by way of amusement for the party. Story telling, smoking, chess playing, and singing, closed the entertainment, but not before the head of the religion made an impromptu poem on the generosity of Surur, and the beauty of his little daughter Zarafat. On this occasion the pompous Governor drank no wine, but, when we were in private, he quaffed his bottle with me and Surur, and enjoyed himself like a very jovial fellow.

I sometimes accompanied him in his excursions on the Nile; he was a capital sportsman, and made it a point to fire at birds with a single ball : in this way I have seen him kill sparrows repeatedly, indeed, he very rarely missed. One day I was disputing the excellence of an officer's pistol who sat by me; he would have it that it was an English pistol, though it was really a German one; when I assured him it was not English, he very deliberately primed it, and retiring to the distance of four or five yards, he fired between my legs, as I sat on a high bench, at a jar about

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