DR. THOMAS SHAW.

Born 1692—Died 1751.

Thiscurious 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, hevisited 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, fromtin(Heb. טִין),clayormud, and Pelusium (Gr. πηλούσιον), frompelusπηλόςTN), 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, thoughin 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. Pococke, Bruce, and others place at Metraheny, 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 onwhich they were erected until the present, few persons have beheld them towering above the plain of the desert, reflecting back the burning sun of noon, or throwing their morning or evening shadows over the sand, without being smitten with a sense of the sublime, and experiencing in their hearts a secret pride at the boldness and elevation of their founders’ conception. And this feeling will be heightened into something of a religious character, if, rejecting, the vulgar notion of their being nothing but royal tombs, we suppose, what might, I think, be all but demonstrated, that they were originally temples dedicated to the passive generative power of nature, the Bhavani of the Hindoos, the Athor-Isis of the Egyptians, and the Aphrodite and Venus of the Greeks and Romans. To Dr. Shaw, however, this theory did not present itself. He was contented with the old idea, suggested by the etymology of the word, that they might, perhaps, have been fire-temples; but he observes that the mouth of the pyramids, as well as the end of the mystic chest in the interior, points to the north, the originalKiblah, or “praying-point,” of the whole human race. Other sacred edifices of Egypt, as Herodotus observes, had their doors on the northern side; the table of shew-bread was placed in the same situation in the tabernacle; and in Hindostan the piety or the superstition of the people points in the same direction.

Of the animals of Egypt which, from the frequent mention made of them in classical literature, are regarded as curiosities, the most remarkable, as the hippopotamus, the crocodile, and the ibis, are now exceedingly rare. Indeed, though the crocodile is sometimes found above the cataracts, it is totally unknown to those who live lower down the river, and the hippopotamus and the ibis, the latter of which was once so plentiful, may be regarded as extinct in Egypt. To make some amends for these losses, there is a great abundance of storks, which,as they are every winter supposed to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, are, according to Lady Montague, regarded as so many hajjîs by the Turks. When about to migrate from the country, it is observed that they constantly assemble together from the circumjacent regions in a vast plain, where, in the opinion of the inhabitants, they daily hold a divan, or council, for about a fortnight before their departure; after which they rise at once upon the wing, marshal themselves into close compact bodies of prodigious dimensions, and then, putting themselves in motion, float away like dusky clouds of many miles in length upon the wind. The aspic, one of which opened the voluptuous Cleopatra a way to the court of Proserpine, is still very numerous in the sandy and mountainous districts on both sides of the Nile. This reptile, now called the cerastes, is capable of existing for an incredible length of time without food; at least if we can rely upon the veracity of Gabrieli, an Italian gentleman, who showed our traveller a couple of these vipers, which he had kept, he said, five years in a large crystal vessel, without any visible sustenance. “They were usually coiled up,” says the doctor, “in some fine sand, which was placed in the bottom of the vessel; and when I saw them they had just cast their skins, and were as brisk and lively as if newly taken. The horns of this viper are white and shining, in shape like to half a grain of barley, though scarce of that bigness.” The warral, a gentle and docile species of lizard, which appeared to be inspired with violent emotions of delight by the sounds of music, he beheld keeping exact time and motion with the dervishes in their rotatory dances, running over their heads and arms, turning when they turned, and stopping when they stopped. These timid practitioners, however, who thus charm or tame this small and apparently innoxious creature, are mere children compared with those daring adepts of Hindostan who, by theforce of spells or skill, compel the cobra di capello, the most deadly and terrible of reptiles, to rear himself in spiry volumes, and dance, or rather wriggle, like a Nautch girl, for the amusement of the crowd. But the Egyptian charmers did something better with serpents and other reptiles than teaching them to dance; they converted them into articles of food; and Dr. Shaw was assured that in Cairo and its neighbourhood there were not less than forty thousand persons who subsisted entirely upon serpents and lizards. Locusts are a delicacy in Barbary; crickets, fried in sesamum oil, in Siam; and a dish of human brains is an Apician morsel in New-Zealand. Nay, we are told that certain Roman epicures, who were very far from regarding themselves as cannibals, were in the habit of drowning slaves in their fish-ponds, that by feeding upon their bodies the fish might acquire a superior flavour and richness. The Abyssinians, who cut beefsteaks from a living cow, belong to this family of gourmands; and those rebel janizaries of Tunis who cut their bey into kabobs, and ate him for a relish, as Dr. Shaw relates, may be said to have pushed this strange, irregular appetite nearly as far as it can be carried. However, the serpent-eaters of Cairo, besides the gratification of their preposterous fancy, have a religious motive, as the being addicted to this curious diet entitles them, among other religious privileges, to the honour of attending more immediately upon the hanging of black silk which is annually sent to the temple of Mecca.

In reiterated endeavours to discern through the mists of three thousand years the ancient condition of Egypt, physical and moral, our traveller consumed the time between July and September, in which month he departed from Cairo on his visit to Mount Sinai and the Red Sea. All travellers who have journeyed through this wilderness speak with terror of the dreary desolation and barrenness of the scene. Vegetation ishere dead. Even the dews and showers of heaven fall in vain. They drench the sands without fertilizing them, and, sinking down into the earth, disappear, leaving no trace behind. On the skirts of the desert, and upon a few widely-scattered points, two or three hardy plants, stunted by the drought, scorched during the day by the intense heat of the sun, and shrivelled up with piercing cold by night, look like a few miserable stragglers found in a country depopulated by war and famine. Upon quitting the valley of the Nile, which is nowhere very broad, the caravan with which Shaw travelled proceeded directly east through the desert towards Suez, the atmosphere being perfectly clear and serene; a fortunate circumstance, as the heavens were every night their only covering, a carpet spread on the sand their bed, and a bundle of clothes their pillow. In this situation they were nightly wet to the skin by the copious dew, though, such is the salubrity of the climate, their health was not in the least impaired by it. When they had arrived at their halting-place, and were about to lie down to sleep, the camels were caused to kneel down in a circle about their resting-place, with their faces pointing outwards, and their load and saddle piled up behind them, and being naturally so wakeful as to be roused from sleep by the least noise, they served their masters instead of a guard.

As in so wild and steril a country the purchasing of provisions as they might be wanted on the way was of course out of the question, they were obliged to furnish themselves in Egypt with a stock sufficient for their consumption during the whole journey. In most countries nature supplies man wherewith to quench his thirst, without his experiencing the necessity of exercising his foresight or taxing his ingenuity, by lavishly scattering about her refreshing springs over the earth, or by suspending, as in the forests of Brazil, diminutive vegetable reservoirsin the thicket, where he may always calculate upon finding the requisite quantity of cool pure water. But in Arabia this rule does not hold. Our traveller, therefore, upon commencing his journey, took care to provide himself with a sufficient number of goat-skins, which were replenished every four or five days, or oftener, if wells were met with. Wine, likewise, and brandy, together with wheatflour, rice, biscuit, honey, oil, vinegar, olives, lentils, potted flesh, and such other articles of food as would keep sweet and wholesome during two months, were laid in; as well as barley, with a few beans intermixed, which, with balls made of the flour of the one or both of them, and a little water, constituted the whole sustenance of the camels. Their kitchen furniture consisted of a copper pot and wooden bowl, in the former of which they cooked, and from the latter ate their food, or kneaded therein their unleavened cakes. When the caravan halted for the purpose of cooking their breakfast or dinner, the dung left by the camels of preceding travellers was carefully gathered up, there being no wood; and this, when it had been a few days exposed to the sun, took fire quickly, and burned like charcoal. Their food being prepared, whether it was potted flesh boiled with rice, a lentil-soup, or unleavened cakes, served up with oil or honey, one of the Arabs belonging to the party, not, as the Scripture says, “to eat his morsel alone,” placing himself upon the highest spot of ground in the neighbourhood, called out thrice, with a loud voice to all his brethren, “the Sons of the Faithful,” to come and partake of it; though none of them, says the traveller, were in view or perhaps within a hundred miles of them. The custom, however, is maintained as a mark of benevolence, and, when an opportunity occurs, of their hospitality.

Upon arriving at the fountain of Elim, two leagues to the west of Suez, they found it brackish, andthough there were several large troughs for the convenience of watering cattle, it was not considered wholesome, and the people of the neighbourhood preferred the waters of the Ain el Mousa, or “Fountain of Moses,” two leagues east of the city, which are lukewarm and sulphureous, and spout up like an artificial fountain from the earth,—a circumstance which Dr. Shaw thinks is no other way to be accounted for than by deducing their origin from the “great abyss!” The distance between Cairo and Suez is about ninety Roman miles, which the Israelites, according to Josephus, though the Scriptures are silent on the subject, traversed in three days, which, considering that they were encumbered with aged persons and children, Dr. Shaw thinks exceedingly improbable. The time employed in his own traject he does not mention; but observes that upon every little eminence on the road, as well as in the mountains of Libya near Egypt, great quantities of echini, as well as of bivalve and turbinated shells, were to be found, most of which corresponded exactly with their respective families still preserved in the Red Sea. The old walls of Suez, as well as the ruins of the village of Ain el Mousa, are full of fossil shells, which, as Xenophon remarks in the Anabasis, was the case with the walls of certain castles on the confines of Curdistan.

Having turned the point of the Red Sea at Suez, they proceeded towards the south, having the sea on their right, and the broken plain of the desert on the left. In the tongue of land improperly called the “Peninsula of Mount Sinai,” lying between the Sea of Suez and the Gulf of Akaba, over which they were now moving, the danger, while the whole caravan kept together, was not great, as opportunities of plunder being unfrequent, robbers had not sufficient motives for establishing themselves there. The chances of danger being thus diminished, our traveller became imboldened to overstep the limitsof prudence, and yielding to his passion for collecting plants and other curiosities, lagged behind, or wandered from the caravan. Scarcely, however, had he tasted the sweets of feeling himself alone in the boundless wilderness, a pleasure more poignant and tumultuous than can be conceived by those who have never experienced it, than he beheld three robbers start up, as it were, from the sand, and rush upon him. Resistance was out of the question. The ruffians immediately seized him, and tearing off his clothes, mean and ragged as they were, two of them began to fight for the possession of them. Meanwhile he stood by, naked, a spectator of the fray, apprehensive that their natural ferocity being aggravated by strife and contention, they might terminate their quarrel by plunging their daggers in his heart. Providence, however, had otherwise determined. The third robber, taking compassion upon his forlorn and helpless condition, allowed him to escape; and after wandering about among the naked rocks and burning sands for some time, he fortunately overtook the caravan.

For several days the sky, as I have already observed, was serene, and the weather beautiful; but on their arriving at Wady Gharendel, a small stream which flows into the Red Sea, a few leagues south of Suez, they observed that the tops of the mountains, which now flanked their road on both sides, were at intervals capped with clouds, which sometimes remained stationary during the whole day. This disposition of the atmosphere was soon after succeeded by a violent tempest. A canopy of dark clouds extended itself over the earth—the lightning flashed incessantly—the thunder rolled along the sky—and the rain descended throughout the night with all the weight and fury of a tropical storm. Such tempests, however, are exceedingly rare in that part of Arabia, though they are not, as Burckhardt observes, at all uncommon in the Hejaz; nor, accordingto Niebuhr, is Yemen much less liable to them. But in the neighbourhood of Mount Sinai there is usually one uniform course of weather throughout the year, the winds blowing briskly during the day, and decreasing with the decrease of light. In the level parts of the desert, where the plain was as unbroken as a calm sea, our traveller observed that curious phenomenon called themirage, or mimic lake, every object within the circumference of which appeared to be magnified in an extraordinary manner, so that a shrub might be taken for a tree, and a flock of birds for a caravan of camels. This seeming collection of waters always advanced about a quarter of a mile before the observers, while the intermediate space was one continued glow, occasioned by the quivering undulating motion of that quick succession of vapours and exhalations which were extracted from the earth by the powerful influence of the sun. The few real springs of water which occurred on the road were all of them either brackish or sulphureous; yet the water they afford is so extremely wholesome, and so provocative of appetite, that few persons are ever afflicted with sickness in traversing these wild inhospitable scenes.

Among the curiosities which are scattered by the liberal hand of nature even over these deserts may be enumerated certain beautiful flints and pebbles, which are superior to Florentine marble, and, in many instances, equal to the Mokha stone, in the variety of their figures and representations. Locusts, hornets, and vipers were numerous; and the lizards seem to have considerably amused the loitering members of the caravan by their active movements and spotted skins. Of birds the only ones seen by Shaw were the percnopterus and the dove, as the graceful and beautiful antelope was the only animal; but the ostrich, which he seems to consider neither a bird nor a beast, is the grand ranger, says he, and ubiquitarian of the deserts, from the AtlanticOcean to the very utmost skirts of Arabia, and perhaps far beyond it to the east. Of the white hares, like those found in the Alps and other cold regions, which some travellers have observed in this peninsula, Dr. Shaw saw no specimen; neither did he meet with any badgers, though, from the frequent mention made of their skins in Exodus, this animal must formerly have abounded here. Nothing, however, seems to have kindled up a poetical fervour in the mind of our traveller like the ostrich, and the magnificent description of its nature and peculiarities which occurs in the book of Job. “When these birds,” he observes, “are surprised by coming suddenly upon them, while they are feeding in some valley, or behind some rocky or sandy eminence in the desert, they will not stay to be curiously viewed and examined. They afford an opportunity only of admiring at a distance the extraordinary agility and the stateliness likewise of their motions, the richness of their plumage, and the great propriety there was of ascribing to them ‘an expanded, quivering wing.’ Nothing certainly can be more beautiful and entertaining than such a sight! the wings, by their repeated though unwearied vibrations, equally serving them for sails and oars; while their feet, no less assisting in conveying them out of sight, are no less insensible of fatigue.”

It was at Gharendel that he supposed the Israelites to have met with those “bitter waters,” or “waters of Marah,” mentioned in Exodus; and he observes that the little rill which is still found in that place has a brackish taste, unless diluted by the dews and rains. Proceeding thirty leagues southward from this place, without meeting with any thing remarkable, they arrived at Elim, upon the northern skirts of the desert of Sin, where, as the Scriptures relate, the Israelites found twelve wells of water and seventy palm-trees. Of the wells our traveller could discern nine only remaining, theother three having been filled up by the sand; but the seventy palm-trees had multiplied to upwards of two thousand, and under their shade was the “Hummum, or Bath of Moses,” which the inhabitants of the neighbouring port of Tor held in great veneration. Here they enjoyed the first view of Mount Sinai, rearing its rugged summit above the plain, and overlooking the whole surrounding country. The traject of the desert of Sin occupied nine hours, and they were nearly twelve hours more in threading the winding and difficult ways which divide that desert from the plain of Sinai. At length, however, they reached the convent of St. Catherine, supposed to be built over the place where Moses saw the angel of the Lord in the burning bush, when he was guarding the flocks of Jethro. This convent, or rather fortress, is nearly three hundred feet square, and upwards of forty in height, constructed partly with stone, partly with earth and mortar. The more immediate place of the Shekinah is marked by a little chapel, which the monks, who are of the order of St. Basil, regard with so remarkable a degree of veneration, that, in imitation of Moses, they take their shoes from off their feet whenever they enter it. This, with many other chapels dedicated to various saints, is included within what is called the “Church of the Transfiguration,” a spacious and beautiful structure, covered with lead, and supported by a double row of marble columns.

The door of this convent is opened only when the archbishop, who commonly resides at Cairo, comes to be installed; and therefore our travellers, like all other pilgrims, were drawn up by a windlass to a window, nearly thirty feet from the ground, where they were admitted by some of the lay brothers. From a notion which prevails but too generally among mankind, that holiness consists in thrusting aside, as it were, the gifts which the hand of Providenceholds out to us, the poor men who immure themselves in this wild prison condemn their bodies to extraordinary privations and hardships, not only abstaining, like Brahmins, from animal food, but likewise from the less sinful indulgences of butter, milk, and eggs. With an inconsistency, however, from which even the Pythagoreans of Hindostan are not altogether free, shellfish, crabs, and lobsters are not included within the pale of their superstitious humanity; and of these they accordingly partake as often as they can obtain a supply from their sister convent at Tor, or from Menah el Dizahab. Their ordinary food consists of bread, or biscuit, olives, dates, figs, parched pulse, salads, oil, vinegar, to which, on stated days, half a pint of date brandy is added.

From this convent to the top of Mount Sinai, a perpendicular height, according to our traveller, of nearly seven thousand two hundred feet, there was formerly a stone staircase, built by the Empress Helena; but in many places the effects of her pious munificence have disappeared, and the ascent of the mountain is now considered by the monks sufficiently difficult to be imposed as a severe penance upon their pilgrims and votaries. Dr. Shaw did not, when he had reached it, find the summit very spacious, nor does he seem to have greatly enjoyed the extensive view which it commands over scenes rendered profoundly interesting and memorable by the wanderings of the children of Israel. On descending into the desert of Rephidim, on the western side of the mountain, he was shown the rock of Meribah, from which Moses caused water to gush forth by the stroke of his wand. It was about six yards square, lying tottering, as it were, and loose near the middle of the valley, and seemed to have been formerly a part or cliff of Mount Sinai, which hangs in a variety of precipices all over this plain. The waters had now ceased to flow, but the channelthey had once occupied remained, incrustated, to borrow the doctor’s expression, like the inside of a tea-kettle that has been long used, and covered with several mossy productions, whose life and verdure were preserved by the dew.

Having terminated his researches in these desert scenes, which seem to have thrown new light upon numerous points of sacred geography, our traveller returned to Cairo, descended the Nile, and proceeding by sea to Syria, arrived in that country about the commencement of December, 1721. Here he seems, for he has left no exact account of his movements, to have pursued nearly the same route with Maundrell, whose description he regarded as so accurate in general, that he merely noticed such places and things as had either been omitted or imperfectly represented by that traveller. Though it was the middle of winter when he passed through Syria and Phœnicia, the aspect of the country was verdant and cheerful, particularly the woods, which chiefly consisted of the gall-bearing oak, at the roots of which the turf was gemmed with anemones, ranunculuses, colchicums, and thedudaimor mandrakes. The air here, as in Barbary, is temperate, and the climate healthy; and, in like manner, westerly winds bring rain, while the east winds, blowing over immeasurable tracts of land, are generally dry though hazy and tempestuous.

The excursions of our traveller in this country appear to have been few and timid, and he remarks, apparently as an apology for this circumstance, that it was necessary to be upon all occasions attended by a numerous escort; for that numerous bands of Arabs, from fifty to five hundred in number, scoured the plains in every direction in search of booty. But even the presence of an escort was not always a safeguard; for the caravan with which Dr. Shaw travelled to Jerusalem, consisting of at least six thousand pilgrims, protected by three or four hundredspahis and four bands of Turkish infantry, with the mutsellim, or general, at their head, was attacked by one of the marauding parties, and treated with the greatest insult and barbarity. Scarcely was there a pilgrim out of so great a number who was not robbed of part of his clothes or of his money; and those who had not much of either to lose were beaten unmercifully with their pikes or javelins. Our traveller himself was not allowed to remain a mere spectator of the scene, for when the banditti had taken possession of the visible wealth of the party, correctly judging that there still remained a considerable portion which had been adroitly concealed, he was forcibly carried off among the hostages, which they seized upon to ensure a ransom, to Jeremiel or Anashoth. In this desperate position he remained all night, exposed to barbarities and insults, and it is exceedingly probable that his captivity would have been of much longer duration, had not the Aga of Jerusalem, with a numerous body of troops, next morning attacked his captors and set him at liberty.

Having visited the several holy places in and about Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Jericho, and the Jordan, he returned, in April, 1722, towards the seacoast; and in journeying by night through the valleys of Mount Ephraim, was attended for about an hour by anignis fatuus, which assumed a variety of extraordinary appearances. Sometimes, says the traveller, it was globular, or else pointed, like the flame of a candle; afterward it would spread itself, and involve their whole company in its pale inoffensive light; then at once contract and suddenly disappear. But in less than a minute it would begin again to exert itself as before, running along from one place to another with great swiftness, like a train of gunpowder set on fire; or else it would spread and expand itself over two or three acres of the adjacent mountains, discovering every shrub and tree whichgrew upon them. The atmosphere from the beginning of the evening had been remarkably thick and hazy, and the dew, as they felt upon their bridles, was unusually clammy and unctuous. This curious meteor our traveller supposes to be of the same nature with those luminous bodies which skip about the masts and yards of ships at sea, and known among sailors by the name ofcorpo santo, as they were by that of Castor and Pollux among the ancients.

While the ship in which he had embarked was lying under Mount Carmel, about the middle of April, he beheld three extraordinary flights of storks, proceeding from Egypt towards the north-east, each of which took up more than three hours in passing, while it was at the same time upwards of half a mile in breadth![1]During cloudy weather, and when the winds happen, as they frequently do, to blow from different quarters at the same time, waterspouts are often seen upon the coast of Syria, particularly in the neighbourhood of Capes Latikea, Grego, and Carmel. Those which Dr. Shaw had an opportunity of observing seemed, he says, to be so many cylinders of water falling down from the clouds, though by the reflection, as he imagined, of the descending columns, as from the actual dropping of the water contained in them, they sometimesappeared, especially at a distance, to be sucked up from the sea. Before we return with our traveller to Barbary, it may be worth the while to notice a remark which he made upon the economy of silk-worms in Syria: there being some danger that, owing to the heat of the climate in the plains, theeggs should be hatched before nature has prepared their proper food, the inhabitants regularly send them, as soon as they are laid, to Conobine, or some other place on Mount Libanus, where their hatching is delayed by the cold until the mulberry buds are ready for them in the spring. In Europe, on the contrary, the mulberry leaves put forth before the eggs of the silk-worm feel the influence of the sun; and at Nice, where many silk-worms are bred, it is the custom, as Dr. Smollet informs us, in order to hasten the process of hatching, to enclose the eggs in small linen bags, which are worn by the women in their bosoms until the worms begin to appear.

1.Catesby, in his account of Carolina, gives a no less extraordinary description of the flights of pigeons:—“In Virginia I have seen the pigeons of passage fly in such continued trains, three days successively, that there was not the least interval in losing sight of them, but that some where or other in the air they were to be seen continuing their flight south. When they roost (which they do on one another’s backs), they often break down the limbs of oaks by their weight, and leave their dung some inches thick under the trees they roost upon.”—P. 23.

It should have been remarked, that previously to his visit to Syria he had sailed to the island of Cyprus, where he seems to have visited Limesol and the principal places on the coast; but of this part of his travels no detailed account remains. Setting sail from Acra, he traversed the Ægean, coasted along Peloponnesus, and passing between Malta and Sicily, without touching at either, arrived safe at Bona, in the kingdom of Algiers.

Thenceforward his excursions were confined to the coast of Barbary, and as these appear to have been undertaken at various intervals by way of relaxation and amusement, to vary a course of life in itself remarkably monotonous, he did not judge them worthy of being particularly described. He observes, however, in general, that in all the maritime towns of Africa and the Levant where there were British factories he was received with distinguished hospitality, enjoying, not only the use of the houses of the English residents, but likewise of their horses, janizaries, and servants. In the interior of Barbary, where there were no Europeans, the style of hospitality was different. Here there was a house set apart for the reception of strangers, in which they were lodged and entertained for one night at the public expense, having the attendance and protectionof an officer appointed for the purpose. Occasionally, when neither towns nor villages appeared, they lodged more romantically in a cavern, beneath the shelf of a rock, under the arches of ancient cisterns, or in a grove of trees; and at other times threw themselves upon the bare sand, and made the sky their mantle. When they happened to fall in with an Arab encampment, ordouar, as it is termed in Barbary, they were almost invariably entertained with hospitality, the master of the tent in which they lodged killing a kid or a goat, a lamb or a sheep, according to the number of his guests, and causing the half of it to be immediately seethed by his wife, while the remainder was cut intokabobs, or small pieces, and roasted for the travellers to take away with them next day. On these occasions, if his hosts were particularly obliging, and entertained him with “savoury” viands, our traveller would generally, he says, present the master of the tent with a knife, a couple of flints, or a small quantity of English gunpowder, and thelallah, or lady, with “a skein of thread, a large needle, or a pair of scissors.” An ordinary silk handkerchief of two shillings value, he adds, was a present for a princess.

During his residence at Algiers, but in what year I have been unable to discover, he seems to have married the widow of Mr. Edward Holden, formerly consul of that place, who outlived him, and erected a monument to his memory. In 1723, the year after his return from Syria, a violent earthquake was felt at Algiers, which threw down a number of houses, and stopped the course of several fountains; but in the year following a still more violent shock was felt, which seems to have shaken the whole coast, while the air was clear and temperate, and the quick-silver standing at the greatest height. At such times the barometer, he observes, was not affected with any sudden alterations, nor was there any remarkable change in the air, which was neither more calmnor windy, hazy, nor serene, than at other times. During the same year, while sailing in an Algerine cruiser of fifty guns towards Cape Bona, he felt an earthquake at sea, which produced so prodigious a concussion in the ship, that at each shock a weight of twenty or thirty tons appeared to have fallen from a vast height upon the ballast. At this time they were five leagues to the south of the Seven Capes, and could not reach ground with a line of two hundred fathoms.

In the year 1727 he visited the kingdom of Tunis, which was not, he observes, divided, like Algiers, into provinces, governed each by a provincial bey, but was wholly under the immediate inspection of the bey, who annually made the circuit of his dominions with a flying camp, and collected the tribute. The seacoast, the Zeugitania of the ancients, was more thickly inhabited, and exhibited more contentment, prosperity, and other marks of good government than any portion of the neighbouring kingdom. Upon arriving at Biserta, Utica, and the ruins of Carthage, Dr. Shaw throws open the floodgates of his learning, in endeavouring to determine the extent of the encroachments made by the mud of the Bagrada upon the sea, the site of the little city which Cato rendered illustrious by his death, and the circumference and topography of Dido’s capital. Bochart, with a still greater luxuriance of quotation, had, by comparing the testimony of the ancients, determined its circumference to have been nearly forty-five miles; but according to Dr. Shaw, the peninsula upon which it stood does not much exceed thirty miles in circumference, and the city, he thinks, could never lay claim to above half that extent. However, as at the beginning of the Punic war the number of its inhabitants is said to have amounted to seven hundred thousand, while it was pronounced by Suidas the largest and most powerful city upon earth, I cannot believe it to have been no morethan fifteen miles in circumference, an extent not at all answerable to the idea which the ancients have left us of its greatness. It seems probable, therefore, that our traveller’s survey was hastily and imperfectly performed.

Quitting these renowned ruins, he proceeded towards Tunis, coasting along the lake, formerly a deep and extensive port, which stretches out before the capital, and communicates by a narrow channel with the sea. The water in this large basin nowhere exceeds seven feet in depth, while the bottom for nearly a mile round the whole sweep of the shore is generally dry and noisome, the common sewers of Tunis discharging themselves into this great receptacle. At a distance, however, the prospect of the lake is not without beauty, its surface being frequently enlivened by large flocks of the flamingo, or phœnicopterus, the bird to which the Hindoo legislator compares a beautiful young woman. It is likewise celebrated for the number and size of its mullets, which are reckoned the sweetest in Barbary, and the roes of which, when pressed, dried, and salted, are calledbotargo, and considered a great delicacy.

The city of Tunis, situated upon an acclivity on the western shore of the lake, and commanding a fine view of the ruins of Carthage, and of the circumambient sea, as Livy expresses it, as far as the island Ægimurus, the modern Zembra, being surrounded by lakes and marshes, would be exceedingly insalubrious were not the effects of the miasmata in a great measure counteracted by the vast quantities of mastic, myrtle, rosemary, and other gummy and aromatic plants which grow in the neighbourhood, and being used as firewood to warm their baths and ovens, communicate a sensible fragrance to the air. Tunis, however, is absolutely destitute of water, having, as Leo Africanus observes, neither rivulet, fountain, nor well; and the inhabitants areconsequently reduced to rely upon what they can catch in cisterns when it rains, or upon what is brought into the city from a brackish well in the vicinity in leathern bags, and sold about the streets as a precious article of traffic. The Tunisians, our traveller observes, are the most civilized people of Barbary, agreeable in their intercourse with strangers, and coveting rather than shunning, like other Mohammedans, all occasions of coming into contact with Christians. The population of the city at this period was said to exceed three hundred thousand; no doubt an extravagant exaggeration, as the circumference of the place did not much exceed three miles.

From this city our traveller continued his journey towards the east, and passing by Rhodes, the ancient Ades, Solyman, and Masourah, arrived at the sanctuary of Sidi Daoud, situated among the ruins of the ancient Nishna. Here he was shown the tomb of the saint, which was found upon examination to be nothing but a Roman prætorium, the pavement of which was adorned with the most elegant mosaics in the world; the general design being as bold and free as that of a picture, while the various figures, which consisted of horses, birds, fishes, and trees, were executed with the most delicate symmetry, and in a variety of brilliant colours so judiciously intermingled and contrasted as to produce an admirable effect. He next fixes at Lowhareah, the site of the ancient Aquilaria, where, during the civil wars, the troops of Cairo were landed, and cut to pieces by Sabura. The remaining ruins were insignificant; but the immense quarries from whence, according to Strabo, the materials for the building of Carthage, Utica, and other neighbouring cities were obtained, still remain open, and are supposed to have furnished Virgil with the original hint of his “Nympharum Domus,” &c., in the first book of the Æneid, though Addison rather supposes that the Bayof Naples is entitled to this honour. Be this as it may, from the sea to the village of Lowhareah, a distance of about half a mile, the interjacent mountain, from the level of the sea to the height of twenty or thirty feet, according to the disposition of the strata, is hollowed out, while enormous pillars are left standing at regular distances to support the superincumbent mass, through which small shafts or apertures were bored at intervals for the admission of fresh air. However, that the reader may perceive the justness of the doctor’s illustration, I will continue the description in his own words, and then subjoin the passage of Virgil referred to: “Moreover, as this mountain is shaded all over with trees, as the arches here described (the openings to the quarry) lie open to the sea, having a large cliff on each side, with the island Ægimurus placed over-against them; as there are likewise some fountains perpetually draining from the rocks, and seats very convenient for the weary labourer to rest upon: from such a concurrence of circumstances, so exactly corresponding to the cave which Virgil places somewhere in this gulf, we have little room to doubt of the following description being literally true, notwithstanding some commentators may have thought it fictitious, or applicable to another place.”

Est in secessu longo locus. Insula portumEfficit objectu laterum, quibus omnis ab altoFrangitur, inque sinus scindit sese unda reductos.Hinc atque hinc vastæ rupes, geminique minanturIn Cœlum scopuli: quorum sub vertice latèÆquora tuta silent. Tum sylvis scœna coruscisDesuper, horrentique atrum nemus imminet umbra.Fronte sub adversa scopulis pendentibus antrum:Intus aquæ dulces; vivoque sedilia saxo;Nympharum domus. Hic fessas non vincula navesUlla tenent: unco non adligat anchora morsa.

Est in secessu longo locus. Insula portum

Efficit objectu laterum, quibus omnis ab alto

Frangitur, inque sinus scindit sese unda reductos.

Hinc atque hinc vastæ rupes, geminique minantur

In Cœlum scopuli: quorum sub vertice latè

Æquora tuta silent. Tum sylvis scœna coruscis

Desuper, horrentique atrum nemus imminet umbra.

Fronte sub adversa scopulis pendentibus antrum:

Intus aquæ dulces; vivoque sedilia saxo;

Nympharum domus. Hic fessas non vincula naves

Ulla tenent: unco non adligat anchora morsa.

From Cape Bon, the Promontorium Mercurii of the ancients, which projects into the sea a little to the north of Aquilaria, the inhabitants assured ourtraveller that they could, in clear weather, discern the mountains of Sicily, more than sixty miles distant. Following the bend of the shore, and passing by the sites or ruins of several ancient places, he proceeded through a rugged road, delightfully shaded with olive trees, to Hamamet, or the “City of Wild Pigeons,” so called from the prodigious number of those birds which breed in the neighbouring cliffs. At Seloome, a small hemispherical hill, he entered the ancient province of Bizacium, once renowned for its fertility, probably erroneously, as the soil is dry, sandy, and of no great depth, though admirably adapted to the olive tree, which flourishes in great perfection all along the coast. The interior is not at all more fertile. Our traveller’s whole employment during this journey was determining the sites of ancient cities, and illustrating other points of geography; but he observed nothing very striking or picturesque until he reached the shores of the Lesser Syrtis, all along which there runs a succession of small flat islands, banks of sand, and oozy shallows, into which the inhabitants wade out for a mile or two from the shore, fixing up numerous hurdles of reeds in various windings and directions as they go, and thus taking immense quantities of fish. Owing to the violent east wind which blew during his whole journey along this coast, he was prevented from observing the flux and reflux of the tide here, from which some authors have derived its name—(“à σύρωTN,traho, quod in accessu et recessu arenam et cœnum ad se trahit et congerit.”—Eustathius)—though he was informed that at the island of Jerby, the eastern boundary of the Syrtis, the sea rises upwards of six feet above its usual height, a circumstance which has likewise been observed in the Gulf of Venice.

This was the boundary of his travels along the coast, from which he now turned towards the interior, and arrived upon the shores of the Lake ofMarko, the Palus Tritonis of the ancients. This lake is about sixty miles in length, and in some places about eighteen in breadth; but it is not one unbroken sheet of water, being interspersed with numerous islands, one of which, though uninhabitable, is large, and covered with date trees. The inhabitants, who have a tradition for every thing, say that the Egyptians, in one of their expeditions into this country, encamped some time upon this island, and scattering about the stones of the dates which they had eaten, thus sowed the palm groves, which at present abound there; and hence, perhaps, the lake itself acquired the name of the “Plains of Pharaoh.” To direct the marches of the caravans across this shallow lake, a number of trunks of palm-trees are fixed up at certain distances, without which travelling would be extremely difficult and dangerous, as the opposite shores are nearly as level as the sea, and even the date trees which grow upon them are too low to be discovered at more than sixteen miles distance. At Tozer, on the western bank, a great traffic in dates is carried on with the merchants of the interior, who bring slaves from the banks of the Niger to be exchanged for fruit.

Proceeding to the west from the Lake of Marko, our traveller next traversed a barren and dreary waste, the haunt of robbers and murderers; and as he passed along he saw upon the ground the blood of a Turkish gentleman, who, he afterward learned, had been murdered two days before. Immediately after he had left this ominous spot, five of the assassins, mounted upon black horses, and closely muffled in their burnooses, or loose cloaks, suddenly made their appearance; but observing that his companions were numerous and well armed, they met them peaceably, and gave them thesalaam. Continuing his journey westward, without meeting with any further adventures, he returned to Algiers.

Dr. Shaw seems, after this expedition into Tunis,to have remained quiet for several years, occasionally making excursions into the interior, and proceeding westward, in 1730, as far as the river Mulloviah. Having already travelled over the whole of these provinces, from the sea to the desert, when following the track of Leo Africanus, it will be unnecessary to pursue the footsteps of Dr. Shaw. He remarked, however, during his excursions among the ridges of Mount Atlas, an extraordinary race of mountaineers, with light complexions and yellow hair, which seems to have escaped the researches of Leo and all other travellers. These people he with great probability supposes to be descended from the Vandals, who, in the time of Procopius, were said to be dispersed among the native tribes, though it is more probable that they took possession of these fastnesses, of which the rude inhabitants were never able to dispossess them. In the city of Kosantina he observed a second Tarpeian rock, from which, since the foundation of the city, such criminals as might be condemned to capital punishment have been precipitated into the river Ampsaga, which dashes along at its base.

In his inquiries into the natural history of these countries, our traveller bestowed particular attention upon the palm and the lotus-tree, the latter of which, though greatly celebrated in ancient authors, is still comparatively little known. From the descriptions of Herodotus, Theophrastus, and Pliny, he infers the identity of the lotus of the ancients with the seedra of the Arabs, which is a shrub of common occurrence in the Jereed, and other parts of Barbary; and has, he observes, the leaves, prickles, flower, and fruit of the ziziphus or jubeb; except that in the lotus the fruit is round, smaller, and more luscious; while the branches, like those of the paliurus, are neither so crooked nor so much jointed. The lotus fruit, which greatly resembles gingerbread in taste, is still in great repute, and is sold in all themarkets of the southern provinces of Barbary. Among the beasts of burden in use at Algiers is thekumrah, an animal produced between the ass and the cow, and having the single hoof of the former, with the tail and head of the latter, though without horns.

The prodigious clouds of locusts which sometimes infest the southern shores of the Mediterranean, and the tremendous devastations which they commit, have been described by many travellers; but by no one, I think, has a more vigorous picture of their movements and appearance been given than by Dr. Shaw in the following passage:—“Those,” says he, “which I saw in 1724 and 1725 were much bigger than our common grasshoppers, and had brown spotted wings, with legs and bodies of a bright yellow. Their first appearance was towards the latter end of March, the wind having been for some time from the south. In the middle of April their numbers were so vastly increased, that in the heat of the day they formed themselves into large and numerous swarms, flew in the air like a succession of clouds; and, as the prophet Joel expresses it, they darkened the sun. When the wind blew briskly, so that these swarms were crowded by others, or thrown one upon another, we had a lively idea of that comparison of the Psalmist, of being tossed up and down as the locust. In the month of May, when the ovaries of those insects were ripe and turgid, each of these swarms began gradually to disappear, and retired into the Metijiah and other adjacent plains, where they deposited their eggs. These were no sooner hatched in June than each of the broods collected itself into a compact body, of a furlong or more in square; and, marching afterward directly forwards towards the sea, they let nothing escape them, eating up every thing that was green and juicy; not only the lesser kinds of vegetables, but the vine likewise, the fig-tree, the pomegranate, the palm, and the apple-tree; even all thetrees of the field; in doing which they kept their ranks like men of war, climbing over, as they advanced, every tree or wall that was in their way; nay, they entered into our very houses and bed-chambers, like so many thieves. The inhabitants, to stop their progress, made a variety of pits and trenches all over their fields and gardens, which they filled with water; or else they heaped up therein heath, stubble, and such-like combustible matter, which were severally set on fire at the approach of the locusts. But this was all to no purpose; for the trenches were quickly filled up, and the fires extinguished by infinite swarms succeeding one another; while the front was regardless of danger; and the rear pressed on so close that a retreat was altogether impossible. A day or two after one of these broods was in motion, others were already hatched to march and glean after them, gnawing off the very bark and the young branches of such trees as had before escaped with the loss only of their fruit and foliage. So justly have they been compared by the prophet Joel to a great army; who further observes, that ‘the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness.’

“Having lived near a month in this manner, like a sword with ten thousand edges, to which they have been compared, upon the ruin and destruction of every vegetable substance that came in their way, they arrived at their full growth, and threw off their nympha state by casting their outward skin. To prepare themselves for this change, they clung by their hinder feet to some bush, twig, or corner of a stone; and immediately, by using an undulating motion, their heads would first break out, and then the rest of their bodies. The whole transformation was performed in seven or eight minutes; after which they lay for some time in a torpid and seemingly in a languishing condition; but as soon as the sun and the air had hardened their wings, by drying up themoisture that remained upon them after casting their sloughs, they reassumed their former voracity, with an addition both of strength and agility. Yet they continued not long in this state before they were entirely dispersed, as their parents were before, after they had laid their eggs; and as the direction of the marches and flights of them both was always to the northward, and not having strength, as they sometimes had, to reach the opposite shores of Italy, France, or Spain, it is probable they perished in the sea: a grave which, according to these people, they have in common with other winged creatures. The locust, I conjecture, was the noisome beast, or the pernicious destructive animal, as the original words may be interpreted, which, with the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, made the four sore judgments that were threatened against Jerusalem. The Jews were allowed to eat them; and, indeed, when sprinkled with salt and dried, they are not unlike in taste to our fresh-water crayfish.”

Among the fish on the coast of Barbary the most curious is the penna marina, or sea-feather, which the fishermen sometimes find entangled in the meshes of their nets; and which, during the night, is so remarkably glowing and luminous as to enable the fishermen to discover by their light the size and quantity of the other fish which may happen to be enclosed within the same net.

In his remarks upon the moral condition of the inhabitants of Tunis and Algiers, he informs us that the sciences which were formerly so assiduously cultivated by the Moors are now neglected or despised: but they have still, as of old, a passion for poetry and music, and many a wandering dervish, like the ΑοιδοίTN, or chapsists of antiquity, excites the admiration and generosity of the Moorish Arabs, by his enthusiastic improvisatores, accompanied by the rude notes of theArabelbah, or bladder and string. Wild nations, whose feelings and passions are alloweda freer play than ours, are far more susceptible than we are of the delights which nervous poetry and simple melody are calculated to produce; and the Moors, whose tunes our traveller describes as merely “lively and pleasant,” are so deeply affected by music, that, in the warmth of their imagination, they lend their own sensations to inanimate objects, affirming seriously that the flowers of mullein and mothwort will droop upon hearing themizmouneplayed.

Provisions, in the time of Dr. Shaw, were exceedingly cheap, a large piece of bread, a bundle of turnips, or a small basket of fruit, being to be purchased for less than a quarter of a farthing. A fowl might be bought for a penny or three halfpence; a sheep for three shillings and sixpence; and a cow and a calf for a guinea. The usual price of a bushel of the best wheat was fifteen pence. Bruce, whose fate it has been to have his testimony upon several important points called in question by ignorant conceited persons, has been ridiculed for asserting that the flesh of lions is commonly eaten by a tribe of African Arabs. Our traveller himself, who had been laughed at for making the assertion in conversation, introduced it timidly into the appendix of his first edition; but in the second it was restored to its place in the narrative, where it is said that “the flesh of the lion is ingreat esteem, having no small affinity withveal, both in colour, taste, and flavour.”

The majority of persons appear to believe, with Shakspeare, that the Moors are a black, ill-favoured people; but, on the contrary, the Moorish women would be considered beautiful even in England, and the children have the finest complexions in the world. The men, from constant exposure to the sun, are generally swarthy, but never black; and the fine olive tinge they thus acquire only renders their complexions the more agreeable to the eye, as Heber observes of the Hindoos. In these countries, as inSouthern Asia, women are nubile at a very early age, being very frequently mothers at eleven, and grandmothers at twenty-two. The circumstance which renders the seclusion of women necessary in such countries is, that the age of puberty precedes the age of discretion; for the passions reaching their maturity long before the reason, they stand in need of being directed by the reason of others until their own is ripened, and when it is they have lost the habit of consulting it. The ancient custom of hiring old women, who, as the prophet Amos expresses it, “are skilful in lamentation,” to perform at funerals, still prevails in Barbary; and so powerful is the effect of this scenical representation of sorrow, that when they are ἀλαλάζοντας πολλά, or “wailing greatly,” expressing their mimic grief by sound, gestures, and contortions of countenance, they seldom fail to work up the bystanders to an ecstasy of sorrow, so that even the English, who know it to be artificial, are deeply touched by it.

The superstitious practices of the Mohammedans in general, and particularly of those inhabiting Northern Africa, are strange and numerous, many of them being apparently offshoots from pagan practices, bequeathed to their ancestors by the Grecian or Roman colonists who subdued and inhabited these coasts. They suspend upon the necks of their children, as the Romans did theirbulla, the figure of an open hand, generally the right, which they likewise paint upon their ships and houses, to avert the effects of the evil eye. At the same time the number five is unlucky, and “five in your eyes,” meaning the five fingers, is their proverb for cursing and defiance. Adults wear small scrolls, as the Jews did their phylacteries, containing verses from the Koran, as a charm against fascination, witchcraft, sickness, and misfortune. In one particular they appear to differ from the superstitious in Europe, who generally imagine that faith in the force of the spell is necessaryto its efficacy; for their horses and cattle, which can be supposed to have but little faith in such matters, have similar scrolls suspended round their necks, no doubt with equal benefit. Their belief injenoune, or genii, a class of beings between angels and devils, and which, like the fairies of our ancestors, are supposed to frequent shades and fountains, is deep-rooted and universal. These equivocal beings assume, they imagine, the form of toads, worms, lizards, and other small animals, which, being offensive to man, and lying frequently in his way, are extremely liable to be injured or destroyed. Therefore, when any person falls sick, fancying he may have harmed one of thejenounelurking in some obscene shape, he immediately consults with one of those cunning-women who, like theveneficæof antiquity, are versed in all expiatory ceremonies of this nature, and at the direction of the sorceress proceeds on a Wednesday with frankincense and other perfumes to some neighbouring spring, where a cock or a hen, a ram or a ewe, according to the sex or rank of the patient, is sacrificed to these spirits.

Dr. Shaw returned to England in the year 1733. In the course of the next year he took his degree of doctor of divinity, and was shortly afterward elected fellow of the Royal Society. Having employed five years in the composition and correction of his travels, he at length, in 1731, brought out the first edition, which was attacked by Dr. Pococke in his Description of the East. The numerous coins, busts, and other antiquities which he had collected in his travels he bestowed upon the university. Upon the death of Dr. Felton in 1740, he was nominated by his college principal of St. Edmund Hall, which he raised from a ruinous state by his munificence. He was at the same time presented to the vicarage of Bramley, in Hampshire, and likewise enjoyed during the remainder of his life the honour of being regius professor of Greek at Oxford. He died in 1751, inthe sixtieth year of his age, and was buried at Bramley, where a monument was erected to his memory by his widow. TheShawiain botany received its name in honour of Dr. Shaw.

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