requires to be constantly refreshed by showers or by irrigation.

On his arrival in Georgia, we find our worthy traveller, who, during his sojourning in the camp of the Turkish pasha, preferred plants to pretty women, suddenly adopting a different creed, and, in order to enjoy the sight of a fair face, spreading out a quantity of toys upon the grass, the reputation of which it was hoped would quickly attract the ladies to the spot. In this expectation he was not disappointed. The young women from all the neighbourhood gathered round the merchandise; but, although they were in possession of robust health and good forms, their beauty fell far short of his anticipations. This is not surprising. The imagination invariably outruns reality; and, moreover, the travellers who confer or take away a reputation for beauty, besides being naturally perhaps incorrect judges, are frequently influenced by considerations which are far from appearing on the face of their narrative.

Having made some short stay at Teflis, he proceeded on an excursion to Mount Ararat, famous throughout all the East as the spot on which the ark rested after the flood; after which he once more directed his footsteps towards the west, returned to Erzeroom, and thence proceeded by way of Tocat and Angora to Smyrna. From this city, after visiting Ephesus, Scalanouva, and Samos, he sailed for Marseilles, where he arrived on the 3d of June, 1702.

It was originally intended that our traveller should have included a large portion of Africa within the limits of his tour, but the plague raging at that period in Egypt deterred him from proceeding into that country. However, he was already, if we may believe M. Fontenelle, loaded with the spoils of the East, and could afford to relinquish Egypt to some future adventurer, for whom the plague might have fewer terrors. The number of plants which he dis

covered was certainly very considerable, amounting to not less than 1356 species, of which the far greater number naturally arranged themselves under the 673 genera which he had previously established, while for the remainder he created 25 new genera, but no new class. The rest of Tournefort's life was spent in preparing the account of his travels for the press, but he did not live to see their publication. A blow in the breast, which he accidentally received, reduced him to a languishing and weak condition, and hastened his death, which took place on the 28th of December, 1708. His travels, printed at the Louvre, appeared shortly afterward in two volumes quarto, and have always maintained a considerable reputation.

DR. THOMAS SHAW.

Born 1692-Died 1751.

THIS Curious and learned traveller was the son of Mr. Gabriel Shaw, of Kendal, in Westmoreland, where he was born in the year 1692. The first rudiments of his education, which appears to have been carefully conducted, he received at the grammar-school of his native town, from whence, in 1711, he removed to Queen's College, Oxford. Here he took the degree of B.A. in 1716, and that of M.A. three years after. In the course of the same year he went into orders, and was appointed chaplain to the English factory at Algiers. As he has left no account of the mode in which he reached the point of destination, it is uncertain whether he proceeded to Africa wholly by sea, or performed a portion of the journey by land; but as it is certain that he was in Italy, where, among other places, he

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visited Rome, it is probable that it was upon this occasion that he traversed the continent of Europe, taking ship at some port of Italy for Algiers, where he arrived about the end of 1719, or early in the beginning of the year following. This city, which has long been an object of considerable curiosity to Europeans, I have already described, at least as it existed in the sixteenth century, in the life of Leo Africanus; and therefore shall merely observe upon the present occasion, that at the period of Shaw's residence it was a small though populous city, not exceeding a mile and a half in circumference, but computed to contain little less than one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants. Of antiquities, the peculiar objects of our traveller's researches, it could boast but few specimens, though his practised eye discerned upon the tower of the great mosque several broken inscriptions, the letters of which, however, were either so inverted or filled up with lime and whitewash, that nothing could be made of them.

The environs are remarkable for their beauty, consisting of a rapid succession of hills and valleys, sprinkled with gardens and villas, to which the more wealthy among the citizens retire during the heats of summer. From these little white houses, perched in picturesque situations among evergreen woods and groves of fruit-trees, the inhabitants enjoy a gay and delightful prospect of the sea; while to those who sail along the shore these woods, villas, and gardens present a no less cheerful and animated scene. The springs which rise in these hills, and confer beauty and fertility upon the whole landscape, likewise furnish the city with an abundance of excellent water, which is conveyed to the public fountains through a long course of pipes and conduits.

Having remained about a year at Algiers, in the exercise of his professional duties, he was enabled,

I know not how, to quit his post for a time, in order to satisfy the desire he felt of visiting Egypt and Syria. His voyage to Egypt, however, was ill-timed, for he arrived in the midst of summer, when, for the most part, the heat is excessive, the sands heated like the ashes of an oven, and the whole vegetation of the country exceedingly parched and withered. In approaching the low and level coast, no part of which could be seen from any considerable distance at sea, the mariners, he observes, conjectured how far they were from land by the depth of the water, the number of fathoms usually answering to the same number of leagues. The portion of the shore lying between Tineh, the ancient Pelusium, and Damietta, was so exceedingly low and full of lakes and morasses, that, in his opinion, it answered exactly to the etymology of its names; Tineh, from tin (Heb. ), clay or mud, and Pelusium (Gr. #ŋdoúcwv), from pelus (os), a word of the same signification! With etymological conjectures such as these our curious traveller amused himself on drawing near the shores of Egypt. At length, however, he arrived at Alexandria, where, regarding every thing modern as so many vain dreams unworthy the attention of a learned traveller, he discovered nothing striking or curious but the shattered walls, the cisterns, and other splendid vestiges of antiquity.

From Alexandria he sailed up the Nile to Cairo, and found travelling upon this "moving road," as Pascal beautifully terms a navigable river, an extremely agreeable diversion. At every winding of the stream, says he, such a variety of villages, gardens, and plantations present themselves to our view, that from Rosetta to Cairo, and from thence all the way down by the other branch, to Damietta, we see nothing but crowds of people, or continued scenes of plenty and abundance. The many turnings of the river make the distance from Cairo to each of those cities near two hundred miles, though

in a direct road it will scarce amount to half that number.

Grand Cairo, notwithstanding the magnificence of its name, he found much inferior in extent to several European capitals, though as the inhabitants lived in a close and crowded manner, it was exceedingly populous. Its principal curiosities, in his estimation, were contained within the castle situated on Mount Mocattem, and consisted of a spacious hall, adorned with a double row of vast Thebaic columns, and a wall about two hundred and sixty feet in depth, with a winding staircase descending to the bottom, hewn out in the solid rock; both of which works are attributed by the Mohammedans to the patriarch Joseph. At the village of Ghizah, directly opposite Cairo, on the Libyan or western bank of the Nile, he supposed himself to have discovered the site of ancient Memphis, which Dr. Pocock, Bruce, and others place at Mitraheni, several miles farther southward. From the discussion of this point, in which, whether right or wrong, our author displays a profusion of learning and very considerable ingenuity, he proceeds, through a series of equally learned dissertations, to the origin and destination of the pyramids. The magnitude, structure, and aspect of these prodigious edifices, which have withstood the united attacks of barbarism and the elements through a period of unknown duration, have frequently been described with picturesque and nervous eloquence, though it is probable that the impression which the actual contemplation of them produces upon the imagination is not susceptible of being represented by language. Satirical or calculating writers have stood at the foot of these ancient temples, for such, I think, they should be considered, and laughed at the ambition or folly, as they term it, which prompted their founders to rear them, because their names and purposes are now become an enigma. Yet it is probable, that from the day on