to the peaceable people as the troops of wild dogs that infest our great cities, or the flights of locusts that sometimes spread famine and desolation over whole regions of fertility.

This propensity to relapse into pristine wildness convinces me of the untameable disposition of the sex, who may indeed be partially domesticated by a long course of confinement and restraint, but the moment they are restored to personal freedom, become wild as the young partridge of this country, which, though scarcely half hatched, will take to the fields and run about with the shell upon its back.

Notwithstanding their wildness, however, they are remarkably easy of access, and suffer themselves to be approached, at certain hours of the day, without any symptoms of apprehension; and I have even happily succeeded in detecting them at their domestic occupations. One of the most important of these consists in thumping vehemently on a kind of musical instrument, and producing a confused, hideous, and undefinable uproar, which they call the description of a battle-a jest, no doubt, for they are wonderfully facetious at times, and make great practice of passing jokes upon strangers. Sometimes they employ themselves in painting little caricatures of landscapes, wherein they will display their singular drollery in battering nature fairly out of countenance-representing her tricked out in all the tawdry finery of copper skies, purple rivers, calico rocks, red grass, clouds that look like old clothes set adrift by the tempest, and foxy trees, whose melancholy foliage, drooping and curling most fantastically, reminds me of an undressed periwig that I have now and then seen hung on a stick in a barber's window. At other times they employ themselves in acquiring a smattering of languages spoken by nations on the other side of the globe, as they find their own language not sufficiently copious to supply their constant demands, and express their multifarious ideas. their most important domestic avocation is to embroider, on satin or muslin, flowers of a non-descript kind, in which the great art is to make them as unlike nature as possible; or to fasten little bits of silver, gold, tinsel, and glass, on long stripes of muslin, which they drag after them with much dignity whenever they go abroad-a fine lady, like a bird of paradise, being estimated by the length of her tail.

But

But do not, my friend, fall into the enormous error of supposing that the exercise of these arts is attended with any useful or profitable result; believe me, thou couldst not indulge an idea more unjust and injurious; for it appears to be an established maxim among the women of this country, that a lady loses her dignity when she condescends to be useful, and forfeits all rank in society the moment she can be convicted of earning a farthing. Their labours, therefore, are directed not towards sup plying their household, but in decking their persons, and -generous souls!-they deck their persons, not so much to please themselves, as to gratify others, particularly strangers. I am confident thou wilt stare at this, my good Asem, accustomed as thou art to our eastern females, who shrink in blushing timidity even from the glances of a lover, and are so chary of their favours, that they even seem fearful of lavishing their smiles too profusely on their husbands. Here, on the contrary, the stranger has the first place in female regard, and, so far do they carry their hospitality, that I have seen a fine lady slight a dozen tried friends and real admirers, who lived in her smiles and made her happiness their study, merely to allure the vague and wandering glances of a stranger, who viewed her person with indifference and treated her advances with contempt.-By the whiskers of our sublime bashaw, but this is highly flattering to a foreigner! and thou mayest judge how particularly pleasing to one who is, like myself, so ardent an admirer of the sex. Far be it from me to condemn this extraordinary manifestation of good will-let their own countrymen look to that.

Be not alarmed, I conjure thee, my dear Asem, lest I should be tempted, by these beautiful barbarians, to break the faith I owe to the three-and-twenty-wives, from whom my unhappy destiny has perhaps severed me for ever;no, Asem, neither time, nor the bitter succession of misfortunes that pursues me, can shake from my heart the memory of former attachments. I listen with tranquil heart to the strumming and prattling of these fair sirens; their whimsical paintings touch not the tender chord of my affections; and I would still defy their fascinations, though they trailed after them trains as long as the gorgeous trappings which are dragged at the heels of the holy camel of Mecca, or as the tail of the great beast in our prophet's vision, which measured three hundred and forty

nine leagues, two miles, three furlongs, and a hand's breadth in longitude.

The dress of these women is, if possible, more eccentric and whimsical than their deportment; and they take an inordinate pride in certain ornaments which are probably derived from their savage progenitors. A woman! of this country, dressed out for an exhibition, is loaded with as many ornaments as a Circassian slave when brought out for sale. Their heads are tricked out with little bits of horn or shell, cut into fantastic shapes; and they seem to emulate each other in the number of these singular baubles, like the women we have seen in our journeys to Aleppo, who cover their heads with the entire shell of a tortoise, and thus equipped are the envy of all their less fortunate acquaintance. They also decorate their necks and ears with coral, gold chains, and glass beads, and load their fingers with a variety of rings; though, I must confess, I have never perceived that they wear any in their noses as has been affirmed by many travellers. We have heard much of their painting themselves most hideously, and making use of bear's grease in great profusion-but this, I solemnly assure thee, is a misrepresentation: civilization, no doubt, having gradually extirpated these nauseous practices. It is true, I have seen two or three of these females who had disguised their features with paint, but then it was merely to give a tinge of red to their cheeks, and did not look very frightful; and as to ointment, they rarely use any now, except occasionally a little Grecian oil for their hair, which gives it a glossy, greasy, and, as they think very comely appearance. The last mentioned class of females, I take it for granted, have been but lately caught and still retain strong traits of their original savage propensities.

The most flagrant and inexcusable fault however, which I find in those lovely savages, is the shameless and abandoned exposure of their persons. Wilt not thou suspect me of exaggeration when I affirm-wilt not thou blush 1 for them, most discreet Mussulman, when I declare to thee -that they are so lost to all sense of modesty as to expose the whole of their faces from their forehead to the chin, and they even go abroad with their hands uncovered! Monstrous indelicacy!

But what I am going to disclose will doubtless appear to thee still more incredible. Though I cannot forbear paying a tribute of admiration to the beautiful faces of these fair infidels, yet I must give it as my firm opinion

that their persons are preposterously unseemly. In vain did I look around me, on my first landing, for those divine forms of redundant proportions, which answer to the true standard of eastern beauty-not a single fat fair one could I behold among the multitudes that thronged the streets: the females that passed in review before me tripping sportively along, resembled a procession of shadows, returning to their graves at the crowing of the cock.

This meagerness I first ascribed to their excessive volubility, for I have somewhere seen it advanced by a learned doctor, that the sex were endowed with a peculiar activity of tongue, in order that they might practise talking as a healthful exercise, necessary to their confined and sedentary mode of life. This exercise, it was natural to suppose, would be carried to great excess in a logocracy. "Too true," thought I, "they have converted, what was undoubtedly meant as a beneficent gift, into a noxious habit, that steals the flesh from their bones and the rose from their cheeks-they absolutely talk themselves thin!" Judge then of my surprise when I was assured, not long since, that this meagreness was considered the perfection of personal beauty, and that many a lady starved herself, with all the obstinate perseverance of a pious dervise, into a fine figure! "Nay more," said my informer, "they will often sacrifice their healths in this eager pursuit of skeleton beauty, and drink vinegar, eat pickles, and smoke tobacco, to keep themselves within the scanty outlines of the fashions."-Faugh! Allah preserve me from such beauties, who contaminate their pure blood with noxious recipes; who impiously sacrifice the best gifts of Heaven to a preposterous and mistaken vanity. Ere long I shall not be surprised to see them scarring their faces like the negroes of Congo, flattening their noses in imitation of the Hottentots, or like the barbarians of Ab-al Timar, distorting their lips and ears out of all natural dimensions. Since I received this information, I cannot contemplate a fine figure, without thinking of a vinegar cruet; nor look at a dashing belle, without fancying her a pct of pickled cucumbers? What a difference, my friend, between those shades and the plump beauties of Tripoli,--what a contrast between an infidel fair one and my favourite wife, Fatima, whom I bought by the hundred weight, and had trundled home in a wheelbarrow !

But enough for the present; I am promised a faithful account of the arcana of a lady's toilette-a complete initiation into the arts, mysteries, spells and potions, in that the whole chemical process, by which she reduces herself down to the most fashionable standard of insignificance; together with specimens of the strait waistcoats, the lacings, the bandages, and the various ingenious instruments with which she puts nature to the rack, and tortures herself into a proper figure to be admired.

Farewell, thou sweetest of slave drivers! The echoes that repeat to a lover's ear the song of his mistress are not more soothing than tidings from those we love. Let thy answer to my letters be speedy; and never, I pray thee, for a moment, cease to watch over the prosperity of my house, and the welfare of my beloved wives. Let them want for nothing, my friend, but feed them plentifully on honey, boiled rice, and water gruel; so that when I return to the blessed land of my fathers, if that can ever be, I may find them improved in size and loveliness, and sleek as the graceful elephants that range the green valley of Abimar.

Ever thine,

MUSTAPHA.

AUTUMNAL REFLECTIONS.

WHEN a man is quietly journeying downwards into the valley of the shadow of departed youth, and begins to contemplate in a shortened perspective the end of his pilgrimage, he becomes more solicitous than ever that the remainder of his wayfaring should be smooth and pleasant, and the evening of his life, like the evening of a summer's day, fade away in mild uninterrupted serenity. If haply his heart has escaped uninjured, through the dangers of a seductive world, it may then administer to the purest of his felicities, and its chords vibrate more musically for the trials they have sustained-like the viol which yields a melody sweet in proportion to its age.

To a mind thus temperately harmonized, thus matured and mellowed by a long lapse of years, there is something truly congenial in the quiet enjoyment of our early autumn, amid the tranquillities of the country. There is a sober and chastened air of gaiety diffused over