that be, which builds its political safety on ruined characters and the persecution of individuals!"

Into what transports of surprise and incredulity am I continually betrayed, as the character of this eccentric people gradually develops itself to my observations. Every new research increases the perplexities in which I am involved, and I am more than ever at a loss where to place them in the scale of my estimation. It is thus the philosopher, in pursuing truth through the labyrinth of doubt, error, and misrepresentation, frequently finds himself bewildered in the mazes of contradictory experience; and almost wishes he could quietly retrace his wandering steps, steal back into the path of honest ignorance, and jog on once more in contented indifference.

How fertile in these contradictions is this extensive logocracy! Men of different nations, manners, and languages, live in this country in the most perfect harmony; and nothing is more common than to see individuals whose respective governments are at variance taking each other by the hand and exchanging the offices of friendship. Nay, even on the subject of religion, which, as it affects our dearest interests, our earliest opinions and prejudices, some warmth and heartburnings might be

excused, which, even in our enlightened country, is so fruitful in difference between man and man!—even religion occasions no dissension among these people; and it has even been discovered by one of their sages that believing in one god or twenty gods "neither breaks a man's leg nor picks his pocket."* The idolatrous Persian may here bow down before his everlasting fire, and prostrate himself toward the glowing east. The Chinese may adore his Fo, or his Josh; the Egyptian, his stork; and the Mussulman practise, unmolested, the divine precepts of our immortal prophet. Nay, even the forlorn, abandoned Atheist, who lies down at night without committing himself to the protection of Heaven, and rises in the morning without returning thanks for his safety! who hath no deity but his own will; whose soul, like the sandy desert, is barren of every flower of hope to throw a solitary bloom over the dead level of sterility and soften the wide extent of desolation; whose darkened views extend not beyond the horizon that bounds his cheerless existence; to whom no blissful perspective opens beyond the grave -even he is suffered to indulge in his desperate opinions without exciting one other emotion

"The

* Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, says, legislative powers of government extend to such acts

But this mild and

than pity or contempt. tolerating spirit reaches not beyond the pale of religion: once differ in politics, in mere theories, visions, and chimeras, the growth of interest, of folly or madness, and deadly warfare ensues; every eye flashes fire, every tongue is loaded with reproach, and every heart is filled with gall and bitterness.

At this period several unjustifiable and serious injuries on the part of the barbarians of the British Islands have given a new impulse to the tongue and the pen, and occasioned a terrible wordy fever. Do not suppose, my friend, that I mean to condemn any proper and dignified expression of resentment for injuries. On the contrary I love to see a word before a blow; for, "in the fullness of the heart the tongue moveth." But my long experience has convinced me that people who talk the most about taking satisfaction for affronts generally content themselves with talking instead of revenging the insult; like the street women of this country, who after a prodigious scolding quietly sit down and fan themselves cool as fast as possible. But to return: the only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

rage for talking has now, in consequence of the aggressions I alluded to, increased to a degree far beyond what I have observed heretofore. In the gardens of His Highness of Tripoli are fifteen thousand bee-hives, three hundred peacocks, and a prodigious number of parrots and baboons and yet I declare to thee, Asem, that their buzzing, and squalling, and chattering is nothing compared to the wild uproar and war of words now raging within the bosom of this mighty and distracted logocracy. Politics pervade every city, every village, every temple, every porter-house: the universal question is, "What is the news?" This is a kind of challenge to political debate; and as no two men think exactly alike, 't is ten to one that before they finish all the polite phrases in the language are exhausted by way of giving fire and energy to argument. What renders this talking fever more alarming is, that the people appear to be in the unhappy state of a patient whose palate loathes the medicine best calculated for the cure of his disease, and seem anxious to continue the full enjoyment of their chattering epidemic. They alarm each other by direful reports and fearful apprehensions; as I have seen a lot of old wives in this country entertain themselves with stories of ghosts and goblins until their imaginations

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were in a most agonizing panic. Every day begets some new tale big with agitation; and the busy goddess, Rumor, to speak in the poetic language of the Christians, is constantly in motion. She mounts her rattling stage-wagon and gallops about the country, freighted with a load of "hints,' informations,' extracts of letters from respectable gentlemen," "observations of respectable correspondents," and "unquestionable authorities";-which her high-priests, the slangwhangers, retail to their sapient followers, with all the solemnity and all the authenticity of oracles. True it is, the unfortunate slangwhangers are sometimes at a loss for food to supply this insatiable appetite for intelligence; and are, not unfrequently, reduced to the necessity of manufacturing dishes suited to the taste of the times, to be served up as morning and evening repasts to their disciples.

When the hungry politician is thus full charged with important information he sallies forth to give due exercise to his tongue; and tells all he knows, to everybody he meets. Now it is a thousand to one that every person he meets is just as wise as himself, charged with the same articles of information, and possessed of the same violent inclination to give it vent; for in this country every man adopts