RICHARD POCOCKE.

Born 1704—Died 1765.

Thisdistinguished traveller was born at Southampton, in the year 1704. The scope of his education, which, besides those classical acquirements that usually constitute the learning of a gentleman, embraced an extensive knowledge of the principal oriental languages, admirably fitted him for travelling with advantage in the East. But previously to undertaking that longer and more important journey upon the history of which he was to rest all his hopes of fame, he resolved to visit some of the more remarkable countries of Europe; and accordingly, on the 30th of August, 1733, he departed from London, and proceeded by the usual route to Paris. The curiosities of this accessible country, France, of which we often remain in utter ignorance, because they are near, and may be easily visited, appeared highly worthy of attention to Pococke. He attentively examined the palaces and gardens of Versailles, St. Germain, and Fontainebleau; the remains of antiquity at Avignon, Nismes, and Arles; and the architectural and picturesque beauties of Montpellier, Toulon, and Marseilles.

From France he proceeded into Italy, by the way of Piedmont; and having traversed the territories of Genoa, Tuscany, the territories of the church, of Venice, and of Milan, he returned through Piedmont, Savoy, and France, and arrived in London on the 1st of July, 1734.

This tour only serving to increase his passion for travelling, he, on the 20th of May, 1736, set out fromLondon on his long-projected journey into the East. He now directed his course through Flanders, Brabant, and Holland, into Germany, which he traversed in all directions, from the shores of the Baltic to Hungary and Illyria. He then passed into Italy, and proceeding to Leghorn, embarked at that port, on the 7th of September, 1737, for Alexandria in Egypt, where he arrived on the 29th of the same month.

It is a remark which I have frequently made during the composition of these Lives, that when an original-minded traveller directs his course through a well known but interesting country, we follow his track and peruse his observations with perhaps still greater pleasure than we should feel had he journeyed through an entirely new region. In the former case we in some measure consider ourselves competent to decide upon the accuracy of his descriptions and the justness of his views; while in the latter, delivered up wholly to his guidance, and having no other testimony to corroborate or oppose to his, we experience an involuntary timidity, and hesitate to believe, lest our confidence should lead us into error. Besides, in no country can the man of genius fail to find matter for original remark. No man can forestall him, because such a person discovers things literally invisible to others; though, when once pointed out, they immediately cease to be so. His acquirements, the peculiar frame of his mind, in one word, his individuality, is to him as an additional sense, which no other person does or can possess; and this circumstance, which is not one of the least fortunate in the intellectual economy, delivers us from all solicitude respecting that lack of materials for original composition about which grovelling and barren speculators have in all ages clamoured; while the consciousness of mental poverty has generated in their imaginations an apprehension that every one who approached them had adesign upon their little pedler’s pack of ideas, and driven them into anxious and unhappy solitude, that, like so many spiders, they might preserve their flimsy originality from the rough collision of more robust minds.

The feeling which leads learned and scientific men one after another to Egypt is the same with that which, after long years of absence, induces us to visit the place of our birth. Philosophy, according to popular tradition, had its birthplace on the banks of the Nile—though those of the Ganges appear to possess a better claim to the honour; and it is to examine the material traces of early footsteps, urged by some obscure secret persuasion that momentous revelations respecting the history of man might be made, could we, if I may hazard the expression, re-animate the sacred language of the Egyptians, who, as Shelley phrases it,

Hung their mute thoughts on the mute walls around,

that traveller after traveller paces around the mysterious obelisks, columns, and sarcophagi of Karnac and Edfu. Countries which have never, so far as we know, been inhabited by any but savage tribes, however magnificent may be their scenery, however fertile their soil, can never, in the estimation of the philosophical traveller, possess equal attractions with India, Persia, Egypt, or Greece: they resemble so many theatrical scenes without actors; and after amusing the eye or the imagination for a brief space of time, excite a mortalennuiwhich nothing can ward off. The world itself would be a dull panorama without man. It is only as the scene of his actions, passions, sufferings, glory, or shame, that its various regions possess any lasting interest for us. Where great men have lived or died, there are poetry, romance,—every thing that can excite the feelings or elevate the mind. “Gray Marathon,”Thermopylæ, Troy, Mantinea, Agincourt, Waterloo, are more sublime names than Mont Blanc or the Himalaya. On the former we are lifted up by the remembrance of human energy; the latter present themselves to us as prodigious masses of brute matter, sublime undoubtedly, but linked by no glorious associations with the triumphs or the fall of great or brave men.

The above remarks appeared necessary to explain why we are never weary of accompanying travellers through Egypt, Palestine, and the other celebrated lands which border the Mediterranean: I now proceed with the adventures and researches of Pococke. On arriving at Alexandria, a city which, when taken by the Arabs, contained four thousand palaces, as many baths, four hundred public places or squares, and forty thousand Jews who paid tribute, he immediately exerted himself to gratify his curiosity, and this so imprudently, that he led several soldiers into a breach of duty, in showing him the ruins of the ancient Pharos without permission, for which they were afterward punished. Several travellers have pretended that the coffin of Alexander the Great is still preserved in a Mohammedan mosque in this city, and we find Bruce, thirty years after Pococke, making very diligent inquiry among the inhabitants respecting it. It is certain that the remains of the Macedonian king were deposited in a golden coffin in the royal tombs of Alexandria; but in the age of Augustus his bones had already been transferred from their gorgeous lodgings to humbler ones of glass, in which they were brought forth from their narrow house for the inspection of the tyrant, who threw flowers and placed a golden crown upon the coffin. However, when we reflect that even in so peaceful a city as Caen, the remains of William the Conqueror could not be preserved a few hundred years from popular insult, it seems extremely improbable that those of Alexander should have beensuffered to escape for two thousand years in a place which has experienced so many and such dreadful vicissitudes.

From Alexandria he proceeded to Rosetta, in company with the English consul; and on approaching within a few miles of the city, was surprised to find a tent pitched, and an excellent collation laid out for them in the desert, for which they were indebted to the politeness of the French merchants, several of whom came out more than a league to meet them. Horses, likewise, were sent for their use by the Turkish governor of the city, whose opinions respecting the natural fitness of asses to be the coursers of Franks seem to have been quite heterodox. To add to the compliment, servants were sent whose business it was to run along by the side of the equestrian travellers; and in this unusual style they entered Rosetta.

It was now the latter end of October, and Egypt, which goes annually through as many changes as a butterfly, was already beginning to put on its winter dress, in which alone, according to the opinion of connoisseurs, it should be contemplated by the admirers of the beautiful. Its landscapes, it is well known, are very peculiar. There are no glaciers, toppling crags, or mountain torrents; but there are gardens filled with palm, orange, and almond trees; fields of young rice more green than the emerald; villages perched on little eminences, and flanked by date groves; diminutive lakes with reeds on greensward enamelled with flowers around their margin; and to crown all, one of the mightiest rivers in the world rolling along its broad waters through scenes of sunshine and plenty, and through ruins of such prodigious magnificence, that they seem rather to be the remains of a former world than the works of that race of pigmy stature which now inhabits it. A large portion of the rich fields in the vicinity of Rosetta belongs to Mecca; and the inhabitants havea tradition that a member of the prophet’s family resided on a neighbouring spot, where a mosque was afterward erected, to which, should the Holy City ever be wrested from the faithful, all devout persons would go on pilgrimage.

Locke, in combating the doctrine of innate ideas, and in order to show that modesty, as well as all the other virtues, is an acquired habit, cites from Baumgarten a description of the nudity and immoral practices of the Mohammedan saints of Egypt, which in that country were not merely tolerated, but vehemently approved of. Two of these naked saints Pococke himself saw in the city of Rosetta. The one, he observes, was a good-humoured old man; the other a youth of eighteen; and as the latter walked along the streets the people kissed his hands. He was moreover informed that on Fridays, when the women are accustomed to visit the cemeteries, these holy men usually sat at the entrance, when the visiters not only kissed their hands, but carried their religious veneration so far as to practise the same ceremony with which the ancients adored their Phallic divinity, and the modern Hindoos pay their reverence to the Lingam. Something of this kind our traveller says he witnessed at Cairo, but that the sight was too common to command the least attention.

Having seen the principal curiosities of this city, and visited the Greek patriarch, who entertained him with a pipe, a spoonful of sweet syrup, and coffee, he set out on the 4th of November for Cairo, sailing in a large kanja up the Nile. Besides the constantly shifting scenes presented by the shores of the river, which were of themselves sufficient to render the voyage a pleasant one, the passengers were amused by Arab story-tellers, and representations of rude farces, in which the sailors themselves were the performers. The lakes of natron, a little of which dissolved in vinegar is, according to Hasselquist, asovereign remedy for the toothache, Pococke did not visit; but he was informed by some of the passengers that their environs abounded with wild boars. On the 11th of November they arrived at Cairo. This city, during his stay in Egypt, may be regarded as his home, from which his excursions radiated in various directions. Though the principal object of Pococke’s travels, perhaps, was the examination of antiquities, and the illustration of ancient geography, he very wisely extended his researches to the modern condition of the country, and the manners of its actual inhabitants. He visited the convents of dervishes and monks, the cells of hermits, the cemeteries of Turks, Jews, and Christians, and observed with care the character and costume of every class of the population, from the sovereign bey to the houseless courtesan, who, like Tamar in the Bible, sat by the wayside to inveigle passengers. His remarks upon ancient Memphis,—the site of which, as I have already observed in the life of Shaw, he fixed at Metraheny,—and on the pyramids, are still, notwithstanding all that has been since written, highly worthy of attention. He was not, like Hasselquist, deterred from ascending to their summit by the heat of the stones or by tempestuous winds; he measured their dimensions; descended into the well; and speculated on their use and origin.

Shortly after his visit to the pyramids, he set out on an excursion to the district of Faioum, and the Birket el Keroun, or Lake Mœris, with the governor of the province, who happened to be just then returning home from Cairo. His companion was a middle-aged Mussulman, of a lively, cheerful temper, who made no scruple of associating with a Frank, or even of eating with him, and drinkingliqueurs, which are not prohibited in the Koran, not having been invented when it was written. It could not, however, be said that they fared too luxuriously onthe way; their meals, like those of Forster and his Ghilān Seid, consisted for the most part of bread, cheese, and onions. After this frugal supper, they reposed at night in a grove of palm-trees.

Having traversed a succession of small desert plains, sprinkled with Egyptian flints, they entered a valley bounded on both sides by hills, composed entirely of oyster-shells, which rest on a bed of reddish clay. Of these shells the uppermost remain in their original state, while those which lie deeper, or are scattered over the plain, are petrified. On arriving at Tamish, the most northern village of the district, the kasheff, or governor, was met by several Arabs, who, observing him to be accompanied by a stranger, immediately began to exhibit their skill in horsemanship, and in the management of the lance. Here the quality of their fare improved. The onions were replaced by pilaus, roast lamb, fowl, soup, and sherbets; and in the morning they had for breakfast bread and butter, poached eggs, honey, cheese, and olives. Faioum, in fact, should be the land of good living. It is the Arsinoitic Nome of the ancients, which, in Strabo’s opinion, was the finest spot in all Egypt; and although it no longer, perhaps, deserves this character, it still produces corn, wine, olives, vegetables,—in one word, whatever they choose to sow or plant will thrive. The olive, which requires cultivation in the gardens of Alexandria, grows spontaneously in this district. The grapes, too, are of a superior quality, and so sweet that a thick syrup made from them serves the Mohammedans instead of sugar. But Pococke soon found that even wine was not an unknown blessing in the Arsinoitic Nome; for, at a supper to which he invited the traveller, the honest kasheff got a little tipsy, threw off his gravity, and behaved as frivolously, says Pococke, as a European.

It was in this canton, according to the ancients,that the Labyrinth of the Twelve Kings was situated, and Pococke, perhaps erroneously, imagined himself to have examined its ruins, from which he proceeded to the shores of Lake Mœris. This lake, the Egyptian priests informed Herodotus, was the creation of art; but observing its extraordinary dimensions, it being no less than fifty miles in length by about ten in breadth, our traveller supposes that the art consisted in the inventing of the tale, and causing it to be believed, which in boldness and ingenuity fell very little short of the actually scooping out of that prodigious basin. But credulity often goes by the side of skepticism. Having rejected as a fable the artificial origin of the lake, Pococke supposes himself to have discovered in an extravagant tradition now current among the Arabs, the basis of the ancient mythus of the Elysian Fields, and the Infernal Ferryman. The common people, he observes, make frequent mention of Charon, and describe him as a king who might have loaded two hundred camels with the keys of his treasury! From this he infers that the fable of Charon took its rise on this spot, and that the person known under this name was the officer intrusted with the keys of the Labyrinth and its three thousand apartments, who, when the corpse of any prince or chief came thither to be interred, made inquiries concerning the actions of his life, and, according as they were good or bad, granted or refused the honours of the tomb. But as the Lake Acherusia, or Acheron, was in the neighbourhood of Memphis, according to Diodorus, he supposes that the same ceremonies were practised at both places, though originating here. Guigniant, a contemporary French writer, supposes that the ruins discovered by Pococke were not those of the Labyrinth, which, in fact, have only recently been found and described by his countrymen Bertre and Jomard.

The original destination of the Labyrinth has notyet been satisfactorily explained: some learned men suppose it to have been a kind of senate-house, where the representatives of the various nomes assembled for political deliberation; others regard it as a real Pantheon, consecrated to the worship of all the gods of Egypt; while a third class insist that, to whatever other uses it may have been applied, its principal object was to afford an asylum to the mummies of the kings who erected it.

Non nostrum tantas componere lites.

However this may be, it seems extremely probable that the idea of the Elysian Fields did actually originate in Egypt, and migrate thence into Greece. Those delicious habitations of the dead, as Creuzer observes after Diodorus, which are spoken of by the Greeks, really existed on the banks of a lake called Acheron, situated in the environs of Memphis, and surrounded by beautiful meadows and cool lakes, and forests of lotus and reeds. These were the waters which were yet to be traversed by the dead who had passed the river, and who were journeying to their sepulchral grottoes in the kingdom of Osiris or Pluto, the Ὅρμος ἀγαθῶν, “haven of the good, the pious, the virtuous,” to which none were admitted whose lives were incapable of sustaining the strictest scrutiny. The heaven of the Egyptians, contrary to what might have been expected, was a place of more complete happiness and enjoyment than that of the Greeks. The very word Elysium, according to Jablonski, signified glory and splendour; but before they could arrive at this region of joy, all human souls were condemned to pass through a circle of transmigrations, greater or less, according to their deeds.

To return, however, to Pococke: From Faioum he returned by Dashone and Saccara to Cairo, from whence he set sail on the 6th of December forUpper Egypt. Having visited various important ruins by the way, he arrived on the 9th of January, 1738, at Dendera, where he found the ruins of the ancient edifices filled with ashes, and the remains of more modern buildings. In fact, the Arabs had perched their miserable little cabins upon the very summit of the temple of Athor-Aphrodite, or the Egyptian Venus, in order to enjoy a cooler air in summer.

From hence he continued to ascend the stream, visited the ruins of Thebes, Elephantina, Philæ, and the Cataracts; whence he returned to Cairo, where he arrived on the 27th of February. It was now his intention to visit Mount Sinai, but finding upon inquiry that the monks of that mountain were then at open war with the neighbouring Arabs, he deferred the excursion, and proceeded down the eastern branch of the Nile to Damietta, where he embarked for the Holy Land.

Pococke arrived at Jaffa on the 14th of March, where, having delivered up his money, according to custom, to the monks, lest he should be robbed by the Arabs, he immediately departed by way of Rama for Jerusalem. The country, at this time, was in a state of great confusion. Feuds of the most desperate kind existed among the numerous Arab clans encamped in this part of Palestine; and from whatever tribe the traveller might take a guide, he necessarily exposed himself during the journey to the hostility of every other horde. However, since the danger was inevitable, and, perhaps, after his tame and secure movements in Egypt, somewhat necessary to give a greater poignancy to his pleasures, he put himself under the guidance of a respectable Arab horseman, followed by a servant on foot, and departed on his way. The Arab, who shared the risk, went a little out of the direct road to the place where his tribe was encamped; and not being subject to that jealousy which induces the Turk to keephis wife from the sight of strangers, he introduced the traveller into his harem, and allowed him to sit down by the fire with his wife and some other women.

It being now evening, the women, having regaled him with bread and coffee, showed him a carpet, on which they desired him to take a little rest. He expected they were to set out in an hour or two in order to reach Jerusalem before day; but lay down, and, falling asleep, remained in that comfortable position until long after sunrise next morning. The Arab now went out and left him in the harem, when the women, who are all the world over generous and hospitable, exerted themselves to entertain and regale him with fresh cakes, butter, and coffee. The mistress of the tent never quitted him for a moment, and while he remained here he was in safety, for the precincts of the harem are sacred in the East. At length the Arab himself returned, and promising him that they should depart in the evening, threw a striped mantle over his shoulders, and went out to walk with him in the fields. Contrary to his expectations, the Arab actually set out with him as soon as it was dark, and carefully avoiding all villages, camps, and inhabited places, in every one of which he anticipated danger, he arrived safely with him at Jerusalem two hours before day.

During his stay in this holy city Pococke visited and examined every remarkable spot within its precincts and environs, and his researches threw considerable light on numerous points of sacred topography. He likewise made an excursion to Jericho and Jordan, and on his return from this journey descended along the banks of the brook Kidron to the Dead Sea. From the number of decayed trees and shrubs which he saw in the water, he conjectured that this lake had recently overflowed its ancient shores, and encroached upon the land. The country in these districts was formerly liable to volcaniceruptions; abounds in warm springs of a powerful odour, and in wells of bitumen, which ooze out of the rocks, and is carried into the sea by the river. It having been asserted by Pliny and others that animals and other heavy bodies floated involuntarily in the water of this sea, Pococke undressed, and made the experiment; and, strange to say, so powerful was the effect of prejudice upon his mind, that he fancied he could not sink in it, and says that when he attempted to dive his legs remained in the air, and having once got the upper hand of his head, gave him considerable trouble to reduce them to their natural subordinate position. However, though he was persuaded, he says, that the result would have been still more striking, his faith in Pliny was not sufficiently powerful to induce him to make the experiment in deep water; which was fortunate, for as, apparently, he could not swim, his travels, had he done so, would have terminated there. On coming out of the sea he found his face covered with a crust of salt, which, he observed, was likewise the case with the pebbles on the shore. The pillar of salt into which Lot’s wife was changed was a little farther south, and therefore he did not see it; but he was assured by the Jews, who seem to have tasted it, that the salt of this pillar is very unwholesome. On this point, however, Pococke merely remarks that he will leave it to the reader to think as he pleases upon the subject.

Having visited all the most remarkable places in this part of Palestine, he returned to Jaffa, where he embarked on the 22d of May on board of a large boat bound for Acra. At this period the sea along the whole coast of Syria was infested by Maltese pirates. By an agreement entered into with the monks of Palestine, these corsairs engaged not to meddle with any of these boats within eighty leagues of the Holy Land; but, in spite of this arrangement, they frequently boarded them, seizing and carryingoff into slavery every Mohammedan passenger, and pillaging both Turks and Christians with remarkable impartiality. The vessel in which Pococke was embarked escaped the clutches of these vagabonds, and arrived safe at Acra. From this part he made an excursion into the northern parts of Palestine and Galilee; visited Mount Carmel, Cæsarea, Nazareth, Mount Tabor, Cana, and the Lake of Tiberias; extended his researches to Mount Hermon and the sources of the Jordan; and then, returning to the coast, departed for Tyre, Sidon, and Mount Lebanon.

The mountains in this part of Syria are inhabited by the Maronites and Druzes, people whose manners and customs I shall have occasion to describe in the life of Volney. Pococke’s stay among them was short, and his occasions of observing them few, but the result of his limited experience was favourable; for he pronounces the Maronites more simple and less addicted to intrigue than the other Christians of the East, and for courage and probity prefers the Druzes, who are neither Christians nor Mohammedans, before every other oriental people. Nevertheless it is conjectured that the latter are the descendants of the Christian armies who were engaged in the crusades. They themselves profess, according to our traveller, to be descended from the English; at other times they claim a French origin; and the probability is that they know not who were their ancestors. Like the Yezeedees of Mesopotamia, they are sometimes compelled to dissemble their incredulity and frequent the mosques; but Pococke learned that in their secret books they blasphemed both Christ and Mohammed. This hypocrisy is not altogether consistent with their character either for courage or probity. They had among them a sort of monks calledakel, who abstained from wine, and refused to sit at their prince’s table lest they should participate in the guilt of his extortions. These menPococke regards rather as philosophers, however, than as monks. Their religion, if they had any, consisted in the worship of nature; and from their veneration for the calf, the lingam, and the yoni, the figures of which they were said to preserve in a small silver box, I should conjecture that both they and their religion are an offshoot from the great Brahminical trunk; and the same thing may with equal probability be said of the Yezeedees, the Ismaelaah, and the Nessariah, whose doctrines had found their way into the west, and caused the founding of altars to the yoni in Cyprus long before the birth of history.

Our traveller continued his researches among the rude tribes who inhabit the fastnesses of Lebanon, visited the cedars, Baalbec (where he found the body of a murdered man in the temple), Damascus, Horus, and Aleppo; and having made an excursion across the Euphrates to Orfah, returned by way of Antioch and Scanderoon to Tripoli, where he embarked on the 24th of October for Cyprus.

On approaching Limesol from the sea, its environs, consisting entirely of vineyards, and gardens planted with mulberry-trees, and interspersed with villas, present a charming landscape to the eye. The wines for which the island is celebrated are all made here. In Cyprus what principally interests the traveller are the footsteps of antiquity; he seeks for little else. The temples and worship of Venus, hallowed, if not spiritualized, by poetry, have diffused a glow over the soil which neither time nor barbarism, potent as is their influence, has been able to dissipate. The heart thrills and the pulse quickens at the very names of Paphos and Amathus. A thousand pens have celebrated their beauty: Love has waved his wings over them. Pococke seems, however, notwithstanding his passion for beholding celebrated places, to have visited these scenes with as much coolness as he would a turnip-field.

Non equidem invideo: miror magis.

He remarks, indeed, that it was from this city that Venus acquired the epithet ofAmathusia; that a temple was here erected in honour of her and Adonis; and that the ruins of the city walls are fifteen feet thick. But is this all? Wherefore are we not presented with a picture of the landscape around the spot? Is it soft, is it beautiful, like the goddess who was worshipped there?

Tacitus informs us that the temple which stood here was erected by Amathus, son of King Aërias; and Servius and Macrobius observe that the statue of the goddess was double-natured and bearded, though clothed in female garments. The sexes changed dresses on entering the fane; and during the mysteries instituted by Cinyras, salt, money, and the symbol of the productive power of nature were presented to the initiated.

Proceeding eastward along the shore from Amathus, the traveller visited Larnica, the ruins of Cittium, the birthplace of the philosopher Zeno; Famagosta, the ruins of Salamis; and turning the eastern point of the island, returned by Nicosia, Soli, and Arsinoe to Paphos. With the traditions of this place one of the most remarkable fables of antiquity is connected; for it was here that Venus, born among the foam of the sea, was wafted on shore by the zephyrs,—“deamque ipsam, conceptam mari, huc appulsam,” says Tacitus. However, modern mythologists have maintained that it was not the Grecian but the Assyrian goddess, that is, the celestial Venus, who was worshipped at Paphos. No effigies of the goddess adorned this fane; but a cone or white pyramid, that mystic emblem to which I have had frequent occasion to allude, was the object of adoration. This emblematical manner of representing the gods was common in remote antiquity, and Venus herself was thus symbolically depicted on the coin of the Chalcidians.

Pococke observes that the ladies of Cyprus still keep up in every sense the worship of their ancient goddess, and even go at Whitsuntide in procession along the seashore in commemoration of the time of her birth. They wear no veils, and their dress, in his opinion, is exactly such as priestesses of the Idalian goddess should be distinguished by.

Having satisfied his curiosity respecting Cyprus, he returned to Egypt for the purpose of visiting Mount Sinai, and tracing the track of the Israelites through the wilderness; and when he had accomplished this design, which he did with little difficulty or danger, he proceeded to Alexandria, and embarked for Crete. Every person is aware of the prodigious celebrity which this island enjoyed among the ancients. It was the great stepping-stone which facilitated the passage of civilization from Asia into Greece. Here Jupiter was cradled, and Minos, the prototype of Lycurgus, legislated for a barbarous people whom he endeavoured by extraordinary, and sometimes by terrible and criminal regulations, to accustom and be fit to bear the yoke of government.

Pococke disembarked at Sphakia; and in crossing the island to Canea, the ancient Cydonia, traversed an extraordinary pass calledEbros Farange, where the road is flanked on both sides by lofty rocks which spring up perpendicularly, and are crowned at their summit by a profusion of shrubs and trees, such as the cypress, the fig-tree, and the evergreen oak. This pass is nearly six miles in length, and so difficult of ascent that towards the inland extremity travellers are compelled to dismount from their beasts and climb the acclivity on foot. A chain of mountains which runs almost parallel with the shores occupies the centre of this part of the island. They were known to the ancients under the name of the “White Mountains.” On the summit of the northern branch there is a small circular valley, in which the winter rains form a number of diminutive lakes,which add exceedingly to the charms of the scene, and where, according to the inhabitants, there grows a species of auriferous plant that communicates a golden colour to the teeth of the sheep which feed upon it. Among the smaller chains, which branch off from the main ridge of mountains towards the north, there are several valleys of remarkable beauty.

After having remained a short time at Canea, Pococke set out to make the tour of the island. His researches, though conducted with haste, throw much light on the ancient geography of the land of Minos; but of all the places which he visited none possess so powerful an interest as Mount Ida, where, as he observes, it is exceedingly probable that Jupiter passed his early youth in hunting and martial exercises. In the centre, or somewhat to the south of a vast cluster of mountains, rises the extremely lofty peak of Ida, composed of successive strata of gray marble, and rendered peculiarly difficult of ascent by detached blocks of stone scattered over its sides. Though considerably less elevated than Mount Lebanon or the Alps, the snow lies all the year round unmelted in several cavities near the summit, upon the very apex of which a church has been erected. Here, in clear weather, the traveller enjoys one of the most magnificent panoramic views in the world. Nearly the whole island lies within the range of the eye; and looking across the sea towards the north, he discovers in the distant horizon several islands of the Archipelago rising beautifully out of the waves.

From Candia he proceeded to Scio, Ipsara, Metelin, Tenedos, Lemnos, Samos, and Patmos, and then passed over to the continent to Smyrna. Here those traces of antiquity which formed the principal objects of his inquiries surrounded him on all sides. Not an excursion could be made without encountering the ruins or the site of some city renowned in poetry or history. Every river, every stream had some glorious association attached to it, from the Meles,on which Homer is sometimes supposed to have been born, to the Cayster and Mæander, celebrated in his poems. Pococke, it should be remarked, with all his admiration for antiquity, had not suffered much of the spirit of Greek poetry to penetrate into his soul; though he might as a man of the world avoid alluding to trite and hackneyed fables, this will not in all cases account for his omitting all mention of remarkable mythi. When encamped, for example, at night round a large fire on the summit of Mount Latmus in Caria, fearing an irruption of jackals and wild boars, he seems to have thrown himself to sleep upon his huge block of granite without once recalling to mind that it was on that wild spot Endymion was visited nightly by the moon. He observes, however, that the shepherds who have succeeded Endymion on this mountain have begun to cultivate a portion of its summit, and to enclose their fields with large trunks of trees disposed as pallisades.

Following up the course of the Mæander he entered the Greater Phrygia, proceeded thence to Galatia, and, turning to the north, took the road through the ancient Paphlagonia and Bithynia towards Constantinople. Here he entered into numerous inquiries respecting the religion and manners of the Turks; and then, descending the Dardanelles, embarked at Lemnos for Mount Athos in Macedonia. This mountain, it is well known, has for ages served as a retreat to numerous monks and hermits, who retire thither from the world to conceal their chagrin at being shut out by more fortunate or more persevering individuals from the participation of its more refined pleasures. There were at this period about forty hermitages situated in a semicircular sweep of the mountain. Some of the gloomy tenants of these cells were poor persons, who subsisted by their own labour, or on the bread and cheese bestowed upon them by the convents in the neighbourhood; and their amusement consisted in carving images ormaking wooden spoons. Pococke found them employed in drying figs, walnuts, and grapes, and learned that they made a little wine and brandy for their own use, which, I hope, occasionally enabled them to forget their cares. To complete their misery, no women were ever permitted to enter their territories.

Leaving this haunt of hypochondriacal drones, he proceeded along the shores of the Gulf of Contessa, and took the road to Salonica. The road along the northern shores of the Thermaic Gulf was beset with too many dangers to be attempted, and he therefore embarked for Caritza in Thessaly, and, arriving next day, took up his quarters for the night at the foot of Mount Ossa. Next morning he proceeded to the banks of the Peneus, which constitute the Vale of Tempé, celebrated by ancient poets as the most beautiful spot in Greece; but either the valley had lost its charms, or our traveller all taste for the picturesque, for he passes it over with still greater coolness than the poetical scenes of Cyprus. However, his mind was at this time so full of the battle of Pharsalia, Cæsar, and Pompey, that it would have been wonderful indeed if he had paused a moment to admire the pastoral scenes of Tempé. Having then reached the blood-stained spot where the greater tyrant triumphed over the lesser, and paved the way for the glorious Ides of March, our traveller examined with attention the various positions said to have been occupied by the contending armies. From thence he descended towards the Maliac Bay through Phthiotis, the native country of Achilles, which was situated in the Thessalian Thebes, the inhabitants of which, according to Strabo, obtained the name of ants on account of their industrious habits.

On his arrival at Zeitoun, which appears to occupy the site of the ancient Lamia, he took lodgings in a caravansary, where, in order to enjoy a cooler air, and escape the vermin which usually abound in such places, he spread out his carpet in an open gallery,and fell asleep. He had not been long in the enjoyment of repose, however, before he was awakened by a fearful noise; when, starting up, he saw by the light of the moon that a large portion of the building had been overthrown, and beheld the terrified horses bursting out of the stables and flying away with the utmost rapidity. Amazed and confounded, he was at first unable to comprehend what had happened; but his servant informed him it was an earthquake, which doubly increased his consternation. They now began to think of effecting their escape, but the building had been so shattered, and such immense heaps of ruins choked up the passages, that although they were apprehensive a second shock might follow and bury them beneath the tottering walls, they were some time in making their way into the street. Here they found that a poor Turk, who had thrown himself down before the door to sleep, had been buried under the ruins; but by prompt assistance he was dug out uninjured. Though there was a beautiful moonlight, so thick a cloud of dust arose from the houses which had fallen down, or were still falling all around, that it was impossible to discern any object at the distance of ten paces; and from amid this dense canopy, which hung suspended over the whole city, shrieks, groans, and sobs, wild lamentations for the dead, the moans of the crushed and wounded, yells of agony, and exclamations of terror were heard on all sides. Humanity, however, in the midst of this awful scene was busy at the work of salvation. Men, goaded on by the sting of affection, rushed desperately in between the threatening ruins in search of the objects of their love,—their wives, their parents, their children,—and returned, some joyously with their living friends in their arms, others with livid and ghastly looks bearing the corpses of those in whom all their earthly happiness had centred. The earth still continued agitated, rocking and heaving like the sea. Pococke causedhis baggage to be transported to a spot which was at a distance from all buildings, where in the course of two hours he counted nearly twenty shocks, some of which were exceedingly terrible. The whole scene was tremendous. A multitude of human beings standing in darkness, fearful that the earth would open beneath their feet and ingulf them; not daring to fly, lest they should tumble into chasms already formed around them; incapable of aiding each other; a prey to every terrible idea, to every horrible foreboding. But at length the earth became still, and while the inhabitants were preparing to bury their dead, our traveller obtained horses and fled away from the city.

Crossing the ancient Sperchius, the stream to which Achilles had vowed his golden hair, and proceeding along the shore of the Maliac Gulf, he soon discovered in the distance the famous pass of Thermopylæ,—a spot which men will tread with a holy pride and triumph so long as a sympathy for heroic valour and patriotism shall remain upon earth. Such are the places to which men should go in pilgrimage,—places sanctified by the dust of the glorious and the great, whose names are rendered eternal by Providence, that even in the basest and most degenerate times mankind might never be reduced to a disbelief of virtue.

From Thermopylæ Pococke proceeded through the country of the Opuntian Locrians to the Euripus, into which Aristotle is absurdly reported by vulgar tradition to have thrown himself, from a despair of discovering the cause of its manifold tides. The ancients relate that the tide here ebbs and flows seven times in the day; but our traveller learned that the motions of the Euripus are irregular, sometimes ebbing and flowing as often as fourteen times in the day, and at others not more than twice. He next directed his course to the shores of the Copaic Lake, the eels of which Aristophanes seems to have so passionatelylonged for during the Peloponnesian war, visited Thebes, and then crossed Mount Pentelicus into Attica. The ruins of Athens were then far less imperfect than they are at present, and he examined them with the eye of a learned antiquary; but extensive as was his learning, he does not seem to have possessed that sort of reading which would have enabled him thoroughly to enjoy a tour through Greece. It is for those who have entered deeply into the private history, literature, and philosophy of the Greeks that Attica has real charms. He should be able to determine or imagine the exact spot where Socrates sat under the plane-tree with Phædrus in order to discuss the merits of Lysias’s style; he should be interested in discovering where the house of Callias stood, to which the impatient Hippocrates would have led Socrates before day, that he might lose no time in being introduced to Protagoras; he should walk up and down the banks of the Ilyssus, that he might be sure of having visited the spot where Sophocles nestled all night among the reeds to enjoy the song of the nightingale: this is the sort of traveller who should visit Greece. Otherwise, with Strabo, Pausanias, and Vitruvius in hand, he may determine the sites of cities and measure the height of columns to a hair; our feelings go not along with him, and his researches become tiresome in proportion as they are circumstantial and exact.

From Athens Pococke proceeded westward, crossed the ancient territories of Megara, visited Corinth, and continuing his journey along the southern shores of the Gulf of Lepanto, arrived at Patras, where he embarked for Sicily. He then crossed over into Italy, and hurried on through Germany, Switzerland, and France, to England, and arrived in London on the 30th of August, 1741, exactly eight years from the day of his first departure for the Continent.

Being now happily arrived in port, with a prodigiousquantity of materials, Pococke, anxious to enjoy the reputation to which he aspired, immediately commenced the compilation of his travels, the first volume of which appeared in 1743, under the title of “A Description of the East,” &c. Two years afterward the second volume, divided into two parts, was published; and shortly afterward he added to his travels a large collection of Greek and Latin inscriptions, which are said by M. St. Martin to be so exceedingly incorrect as to be almost unintelligible. As Pococke can very well dispense with the credit arising from “this kind of researches,” I have not thought it necessary to examine whether the reproach of the Frenchman be well founded or not; but I cannot help congratulating that writer upon the felicitous manner in which he commences his account of our traveller, “the obscure and insignificant particulars of whose life,” he tells us, “are scarcely worth relating;” which is certainly a peculiarly ingenious application of those rules of rhetoric that teach us how to vivify and adorn a barren subject. The readers of the “Biographie Universelle” may perhaps suspect, however, that M. St. Martin was deterred from seeking for the “obscure and insignificant particulars” of Pococke’s life, by the vast bulk of his volumes, through which they lie scattered at wide intervals; but few who have perused those volumes, replete with interest and information, will allow that their author deserved no more than one little page in an unwieldy collection, where so many obscure scribblers, whose very names are forgotten by the public, are commemorated at such disproportionate length.

Pococke, whose reputation was quickly diffused throughout Europe, having taken orders, was promoted, in 1756, to the archdeaconry of Ossory, in Ireland; and in 1765 was made bishop of Elphin. This honour he was not destined long to enjoy, however, for in the month of September, of the sameyear, he died of apoplexy, in the 61st year of his age. Besides his travels, he was the author of several memoirs in the Philosophical Transactions, and in the Archæologia; and there still remain a number of his smaller pieces in manuscript at the British Museum. No popular or well-conceived edition of his works has hitherto been published, though few travellers are deserving of more credit, or were more competent to describe the countries through which they journeyed.

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