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seldom rapid or instantaneous. It seems always the result of sudden apprehension or surprise, when the poor defenceless animal, having no means of resistance, gradually assumes the colour of some substance over which it passes, being thus provided by nature with the means of concealment. Frogs and toads appear to possess this property in a certain degree, although it may have escaped the observation of naturalists. After these reptiles have remained a certain time upon a recently turned border of earth, their colour so much resembles that of the soil, that they are not easily perceived; and sometimes among grass, when alarmed by the sudden approach of any other animal, they assume a greenish hue. The inclosures for gardens near Rosetta are formed by hedges made of palm branches, or of the cactus ficus indica, prickly pear. We had often the pleasure of collecting its fine yellow blos soms these are faithfully represented by an engraving pub lished in the account of Lord Macartney's voyage to China. Apricots of a small size, the produce of standard trees, together with the fruit of the banana, sugar canes, pumpkins, lettuces, and cucumbers, are common in the markets of Rosetta, at this season of the year.

In viewing Egypt, there is nothing more remarkable than the scarcity of those antiquities which appear so common in all the museums of Europe. From Rosetta, the French had remov ed almost every thing of this description; but their acquisi tions were by no means so remarkable as might have been expected. We found only some granite columns remaining: these, indeed, were frequent in the streets of the place, and they were the only antiquities of the city. The famous trilingular inscription, preserved upon a mass of syenite, commonly called the Rosetta stone, afterward a subject of contention between General Menou and our commander in chief, during the capitulation of Alexandria, was not found in Rosetta. Its discovery was first officially announced by an article in the "Courier d'Egypte," or Cairo Gazette † it is there described as the result of an excavation made in digging for the fortifications of Fort Julien, situated upon the western side of the Rosetta branch of the Nile, between that city and the embouchure of the river, at three thousand toises, or fathoms, distance from the latter. The peculiar form of countenance discernible upon

*Musa sapientum.

† Dated "Rosette, le 2 Fructidor, An7"

The following is the bulletin of the event; remarkable for the ignorance betrayed by the French savuns employed by Meñou in translating the Greek inscription upon

the statues of Isis may yet be recognized in the features of the Egyptian women, and particularly in those of Rosetta, when they can be prevailed upon to lay aside their veils. Upon the sands around the city may be seen the scarabæus pilularius, or rolling beetle, as sculptured upon the obelisks and other antiquities of the country, moving before it a ball of dung, wherein it deposits an egg. The natural history of this little insect exhibits, in a surprising manner, the force of that incom prehensible emanation of the mundane soul, to which we give the name of instinct. With the ancients it was a type of the sun. We often find it figured among the characters used in hieroglyphic writing. As it makes its physical appearance in that season of the year immediately preceding the inundation of the Nile, it may have been so represented as a symbol, generally, of the spring, of fecundity, or of the Egyptian month anterior to the rising of the water. An argument for the second by

the stone. By this also it appears, that an officer of the name of Bouchard made the discovery.

"Parmi les travaux fortifications que le Citoyen d'Hautpoul, chef de bataillon du génie, a fait faire à l'ancien Fort du Raschid, nommé aujourd'hui Fort Julien, situé sur la rive gauche du Nil, à trois mille toises du Boghaz de la branche de Rosette, il a été trouvé, dans des fouilles, une pierre d'un très beau granit noir, d'un grain très fin, très dure au marteau. Les dimensions sont de 36 pouces de hauteur, de 28 pouces de largeur, et de 9 à 10 pouces d'épaisseur. Une seule face bien polie offre trois inscriptions distinctes et separées en trois bandes parallèles. La premiere et supérieure est écrite en caractères hieroglyphiques: on y trouve quatorze lignes de caractères, mais dont une partie est perdue par une cassure de la pierre. La seconde et intermédiaire est en caractères que l'on croit être Syriaque; on y compte trente deux lignes. La troisième et la derniere est écrite en Grec; on y compte cinquante quatre lignes de carectères très fins, très bien sculptés, et qui comme ceux des deux autres inscriptions supérieures, sont très bien conservés.

"Le Général Menou a fait faire traduire en partie l'incription Gréque. Elle porte en substance que Ptolemy Philopater fit rouvrir tous les canaux de l'Egypte, et que ce prince employa a ces immenses travaux un nombre très considerable d'ouvriers, des sommes immenses et huit années de son regne. Cette pierre offre un grand intérêt pour l'étude des caractères hieroglyphiques: peut être même en donnera-t-elle enfin la clef. "La Citoyen BOUCHARD, officier du corps de génie, qui sous les ordres du Citoyen d'Hautpoul, conduisoit les travaux du Fort du Raschid, a bien voulu se charger de faire transporter cette pierre au Kaïre. Elle est maintenant à Boulag." Courier de Egipte, No. 37. p. 3. Au Kaïre, de l'Imprimerie Nationale.

There are other reasons for believing it the sign of an epocha, or date; and among these may be particularly stated the manner of its occasional introduction in the apices of Egyptian obelisks, beginning their inscriptions according to the style of the translated legend upon the Rosetta stone. With such evidence, we have, perhaps, something beyond mere conjecture for its illustration. We there find the promulgation and commemoration of a decree, inscribed in hieroglyphic characters, opening with a date: "On the 4th day of the month Xandicus, and the 18th of the Egyptian Mecheir." There seems to be as little reason for doubting that the characters upon Egyptian obelisks were used to register transactions, according to annals preserved by the priests of the country, as that the pillar of Forres in Scotland, similarly inscribed, and other more ancient Gaelic monuments, were erected to record public events. Yet the learned Kircher, upon the authority of Plutarch, explains this symbol in a more abstract manner; and to his illustration, the natural history of the insect offers very remarkable support. He considers it as a type of the Anima Mundi, or fiver of Light. Inasmuch as every sign used in the writings of the priests had a mystical as well as a literal signification, this may be true concerning its sacred and original import. The figure of Aries, used to denote the month of March, had also, among the ancients, its mythological signification. The image of the scarabaus was worn as an amulet both by Egyptians and by Greeks; and so was the head of the ram. "Scarabe

pothesis may be urged, in the fact that the women of the country eat those beetles, in order to become prolific.*

A building of considerable, although unknown, antiquity, still exists in Rosetta; which seems to afford proof that the pointed Gothic arch owes its origin to the appearance presented by contiguous palm trees. The roof is entirely of stone, and consists of curvatures supported by props, representing the trunks of palm trees, placed in the sides and corners of the structure. Their branches, crossing each other upward, form intersections corresponding in shape with the pointed arches of our cathedrals.

We had not remained a fortnight in Rosetta, when our plan of residence was suddenly interrupted by an invitation from Captain Russell, of the Ceres frigate, to accompany him to Cyprus; his ship having been ordered to that island for water. We accepted his kind offer, and, returning to the Braakel on the twentieth of May, set sail in the Ceres on the twentyninth, steering first toward the mouth of the Nile; Captain Russel being commissioned to send to Rosetta some chests of dollars, to purchase supplies for the fleet. We lay all that night off the mouth of the Nile, after taking the latitude of its embouchure at noon. Our own latitude we found to be 31° 25'; and our distance from the mouth being two miles at the time of the observation, makes the junction of the Nile with the Mediterranean precisely 31° 27'. Our voyage was attended by no circumstance worth notice. In the examination. of the ship's log-book, we found only a repetition of the same statement, of favourable breezes and fair weather. In the Archipelago and Mediterranean, during the summer season, mariners may sleep. Their vessels glide over a scarcely ruffled surface, with almost imperceptible motion. But in other months, no part of the main ocean is more agitated by winds, figura circulo insignita.... nihil aliud indicat, quàm Solem supra-mundanum." Kircher. dip. Egypt. tom. iii. p. 320. Rom. 1654. Anima Mundi, sive Spiritus Universi, ex Scarabeo constat." Ibid. p. 147.

*This curious remnant of an ancient superstition is also not without its illustration in Kircher: "Accedit quod idem Scarabaus significatione ad mores translata idem, teste Horo, lib. 1. cap. 10. quod patrem el masculam virtutem notet." Edip. Egypt. tom. hii. cap. 4. p. 179. The subject admits of further illustration, by reference to Plutarch. According to him, soldiers wore the image of the beetle upon their signets; and this perhaps inay account not only for the number of them found, but also for the coarseness of the workmanship "Of a like nature," says he is the beetle, which we see engraven upon the signets of the soldiers; for there are no females of this species, but all males, who propagate their kind by casting their seed into those round balls of dung, which they form on purpose; providing thereby, not only a proper nidus for the reception of their young, but nourishment likewise for them as soon as they are born." Plutarch. de Iside el Osic, cop. 10.

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or exhibits, during calms, a more tremendous swell. It is indeed singular, that even fresh gales in the Mediterranean, throughout May and June, cause no turbulent waves. subsequent voyage to the coast of Syria, on board the Romulus frigate, we took in the royals, and carried reefs in the topsail, fore and aft, and also in the mizen, playing all the while at chess in the cabin, as if we were sailing on the Thames. About six o'clock in the evening of June the third, we made land, northeast and by east. It fell to my lot to give the first intelligence of its appearance, being aloft, upon the look-out, in the phuttock shrouds. Cape Blanco, anciently Curias Promontory, then hove in view, (to use the language of seamen,) and soon after the whole island was seen indistinctly, looming amidst thick fogs. It appeared very high and mountainous. We had such light breezes and frequent calms, that we did not reach Salines bay until three o'clock, P. M. on Saturday the sixth of June. We had coasted the whole island, from its western extremity, and so near to the shore, that we had a distinct survey of the features of the country. We saw the fortress and town of Baffa, anciently Paphos, backed by high mountains. The coast toward the west much resembles the southern part of the Crimea; the villages and cultivated places being near the shore, and all behind craggy and mountainous. From Baffa to Limasol, near the spot where the ancient city of Amathus stood, the coast appears very fertile, and more so than any part of the island that we afterward visited. Toward the south western district the country is well covered with forest trees, and particularly the neighbourhood of Baffa. Limasol produces the finest muscadine wine of Cyprus; some of this pours like oil, and may be kept to a great age. The wine called Commanderia is, lowever, held principally in esteem among the natives.

As we sailed into Salines bay, anciently that of Citium, now called As, from a cluster of salt lakes near the sea, the town of Salines appeared covered with that white fog, so much dreaded, and so well known in Italy, by the name of malaria. The mountains behind the place were partially concealed by this unwholesome vapour. It rose from the shore and buildings like smoke. Whenever this appearance is presented, the heat upon the island is excessive. Few of the natives venture out of their houses during mid-day; and all journeys, even those of caravans, are performed in the night; the dews are then neither abundant nor dangerous: in this re

spect Cyprus differs entirely from Egypt, and from all the, neighbouring shores. Its ports are more sultry than any other in the Levant. Salines, and the towns situated on the eastern and north eastern coasts of the island, are subject to such dangerous temperature, that, in the months of June and July, persons fall victims to the afflicting malady called a sun stroke, or coup de soleil, if they venture out at noon without the precaution of carrying an umbrella. The inhabitants, especially of the lower order, wrap their heads as if exposed to the rigour of a severe winter; being always covered with a turban, over which, in their journeys, they place a thick shawl, many times folded. The great heat experienced upon the eastern coasts of Cyprus is owing to two causes: to the situation of the island with respect to the Syrian, Arabian, and Lybian deserts; and to its mountainous nature, preventing the cooler winds, the west and northwest, from the low shores to the east and Dortheast.

We had scarce entered the bay, when we observed, to the northeast, a lurid haze, as if the atmosphere was on fire; and suddenly, from that quarter, a hurricane took us, that laid the Ceres upon her beam-ends. At the time of this squall I endeavoured to ascertain the temperature of the blast. We found it so scorching that the skin instantly peeled from our lips; a tendency to sneeze was excited, accompanied with great pain in the eyes, and chapping of the hands and face. The metallic scale of the thermometer, suspended in a port hole to windward, was kept in a horizontal position by the violence of the gale; and the mercury, exposed to its full current, rose six degrecs of Fahrenheit in two minutes, from eighty to eighty-six; a singular consequence of northeast wind to Englishmen, accustomed to consider this as the coldest to which their island is exposed. All the coast of Cyprus, from Salines to Famagosta, anciently Salamis, is liable to hot winds, from almost every point of the compass; from the northeast; from the east; from the southeast; from the south; and southwest. The northeast coming from the parched deserts of Curdistan; the east from the sands of Palmyra; the southeast from the great desert of Arabia; and the south and southwest from Egypt and Lybia. From the west, northwest, and north, the inhabitants are shut by high mountains, lying open to the beams of a scorching sun, reflecting from a soil so white, that the glare is often sufficient to cause temporary blindness, without even the prospect of a single tree, beneath which one might hope for shade. In the