tribe, terrible to travellers, inhabit the foot of the mountain; they wor ship the evil spirit, and consider robbery and murder lawful. In a defile near the lake of Van, the caravan met a troop, who, in consideration of a present, suffered it to pass without molestation. The lake of Van is ninety leagues round; its trade is very brisk, and the fishing considerable: eminences covered with trees surround it on all sides; the climate is mild, and the land fertile, and the town is surrounded by delicious gardens. The Pacha received the author with great distinction; gave him an escort; and byone of those revolutions so very frequent among the Turks, he perished three days after, being assassinated by a rival. From Van, M. Jaubert directed his course towards Cotourah, the last village in Turkey: he soon came in sight of Khoï, where the aspect of the country suddenly changes:-politeness of manner, health of the inhabitants, richness and variety of cultivation, elegance of language, every thing announces the Persian territory.

Khoi is a fortified town containing twenty-five thousand inhabitants. The governor endeavoured by innumerable civilities, to make our traveller forget the horrid treatment he had met with from the Kourdes. At his first stage from Khoi, the author was not a little surprised to find lodgings and food prepared for him; but his astonishment was still greater to find himself received, at the entrance of a little village, with compliments in verse, rather flattering and high-flown it is true, but couched in great purity of language.

After crossing a short desert, he arrived at Merend, the ancient Morunda, where opium and cochineal are found. The distance from this place to Tauis is reckoned eighteen leagues. The rivers he crossed in his route emptied themselves into the lake of Ormiah, another inland sea that derives its name from a town, celebrated as the birth-place of Zoroaster. Tauris has been shaken by earthquakes; and if Chardin were to revisit it, he would no longer know it. The waters of the lake are bituminous, so that no fish can live in it. From time immemorial, the country has been torn by volcanic eruptions.

The old name Atropatene, as well as the modern one, Aderbidjan, signifies land of fire; and the author thinks that the mountains already mentioned, Ararat, Seïban and Kusseh-Dag have formerly emitted fire. The whole country is full of sulphuric mineral waters, and sulphur is plentiful: naphtha or petroleum is found there, and the inhabitants make use of it for lights. According to our author, Tauris is not the ancient Ecbatana, but the Gaza of the Medes; it is now the second city of Persia, and is surrounded by towers; with a population amounting to fifty thousand. Aderbidjan was governed by the Prince Abbas-Mirza, son of the Chah: when the author arrived in this province, Feth-Aly-Kan, a well-inform ed and agreeable man, who had accompanied Mr. Malcolm in his first voyage to Persia, was then lieutenant of the Begler-beg: he lodged M. Jaubert in his magnificent palace, a delicious residence, breathing voluptuousness and effiminacy: his conversation constantly turned either on the discoveries of the Europeans in the sciences, the great success at that time of the French nation, or upon the wisdom and glory of the reigning King, Feth-Åly-Chah.

From Tauris our traveller, instead of going on towards Teheran, travelled eastward, through Seidabad, Serab and Ardebil, in order to visit the camp of Abbas Mirza, not far from the Caspian Sea: in this country the houses are built below the soil, like several parts of Armenia and Georgia, where the inhabitants lodge underground. Ardebil is the mart for all the caravans travelling from Tiflis to Teheran and Ispahan: at this place, M. Jaubert, who had resumed his European dress, became the object of general and disagreeable curiosity. On his arrival at the camp of the young Persian Prince, he was treated with the greatest distinction. Abbas-Mirza had recently gained some advantage over the Russians; but the renown of the victories of the French armies excited his admiration, and he wished to have a faithful account of them: he also wished to inform himself of every thing remarkable that had taken place amongst the ancients as well as moderns; the events of the French

expedition to Egypt, the bravery of the Mamelukes, the life of the ferocious Djezzar, &c. On this occasion our traveller related his mission in 1804, to the Pacha of Acre, in the suite of General Sebastiani, and the singular conversations of this sanguinary man. Abbas Mirza departed in order to take the field, and our author left for Khalkhal, and afterwards for Zinghian and Sultânieh, in Persian Irac: this last town, lately flourishing and full of inhabitants, is now an immense mass of ruins, the effect of civil wars: beyond it is the fertile valley of Abher, which follows the desert of Cazbin: this country produces excellent wine and pistachios. Our author witnessed at Cazbin a brilliant fete, in honor of the birth of three princes of the blood-royal: music, poetry, illuminations, flowers, dancing, and the most delicious perfumes embellished a splendid repast, where the wine of Schiraz was profusely drank, in defiance of the law of Mahomet.

From Cazbin he travelled in three days to Teheran, the capital of Persia, escorted by a numerous and magnificent cavalry that Feth-Aly-Chah the king had sent him. The AdjutantGeneral Romieux, although he left France on the same mission after M. Jaubert, arrived before him at Teheran, by the way of Bagdad, but he died no one knew how, before the arrival of M. Jaubert. After the accustomed visits to the Vizier and the ministers, our traveller obtained his first audience of the Sovereign. We must refer our readers to the original for the curious account of his reception: when he made his first obeisance, he was kept so far off, that he could scarcely see the throne of Feth-Aly-Chah. The master of the ceremonies having announced him to the king, he replied "You are welcome;" after which a Visier conducted him to the hall of audience, the magnificence of which is beyond expression; millions of diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires glittered on all sides: the King, covered with the finest diamonds, had three of his sons with him. After reading the credentials, the audience lasted an hour: Feth Aly-Chah felt pleasure in conversing with an European without the assistance of an interpreter. The pa

lace-gardens are not like those of the Turks, planted without either order or taste, nor are they like those of Egypt, entirely deprived of turf; there are serpentine walks, with basins of marble jets d'eau, &c. carpets of rich verdure, and a great variety of flowers.

Amongst the trees are the plan tain, willow, poplar, &c., which surround the mysterious pavillion, where the Chah goes every day. The account of this voluptuous place, where the most beautiful women in Asia aspire to the favor of their sovereign, must be read in the ori ginal: the miniatures of all those, who have succeeded in pleasing him, ornament one of the rooms, and their number is very considerable. The library contains some precious manuscripts, among which our author saw a poem of Feth-Aly-Chah's own composition. Teheran has been the capital of the empire since the year 1794, which was in the reign of Mahomet Kan. The fortifications are inferior-the population inconsiderable-and the air unhealthy.

This was the time of the annual military review, and the King was desirous of taking M. Jaubert with him; but a violent fever, caused by the unhealthiness of Teheran, de tained him with Aly-Chah-Abbas. The King's chief physician, MirzaChefi, received orders to take every care of him; and his own life would be endangered if he did not restore his patient to health: this doctor ordered him, amongst other medicines, stewed rice, raw cucumbers, and green fruit: another physician of the royal harem advised him to pray to the prophet Ali. Happily he escaped both these orders, and got well in spite of cucumbers and rice. The King's physician was afraid at first that M. Jaubert would share the fate of M. Romieux, who, after having escaped assassination from the Arabs in the desert of Orfa, and received an excellent reception from the King, suddenly died, with his travelling companion; or that of M. Outrey, vice-consul of Bagdad, and brother-in-law to the author, who had also been attacked with violent and dangerous illness: the complaints of our traveller, however, had a different origin, and soon yielded to the care of his friends.

At last arrived at the camp of Sultaniéh, he assisted for forty days at the hunting parties of Feth-Aly Chah, and at the reviews of troops, employing himself during the time with the purport of his mission: he at length obtained his audience of leave, and received magnificent presents: the King assured him that he much wished to be in amity with the French nation; and promised to receive with politeness all Frenchmen, who should be induced to visit Persia through curiosity or business. On the 14th of July, M. Jaubert set out with a numerous escort, accompanied by M. Dupré, son of the French consul at Trebizond, who came to Teheran, to bring the news of the peace of Presbourg; Mirza-Chefi still attending him, had to answer with his head for the safety of the traveller. His route was nearly the same as that by which he came, by Tauris, the lake of Ormiah, and Khoi: at this last place he parted from the royal physician; for whose safety he provided for in his turn, by giving him a certificate of his good fiealth. Thence the travellers went to Van. In this place is the convent of the seven churches, inhabited by Armenian monks, less rigid in their diet than the monks of La Trappe. They then passed an arm of the Euphrates, near Touzla, which they crossed with the help of leather bottles; and lastly, the Araxes, which is in the same mountains as the Tigris and the Euphrates. Arrived at ErzeRoum, the Persian escort quitted M. Jaubert, who took the road to Djennés, which he considered the same place as Gymnias, known by the retreat of the ten thousand (rather than Kenes, as Mr. Macdonald Kinneir thought) then he reached Tchiftlik, the silver mines of Gumach-Khaneh, and the fine country of Trebizond, the end of M. Jaubert's voyage in Asia Minor. At this place he embarked directly for Constantinople. Bad weather forced the travellers to stay at several places on the southern borders of the Black Sea, as Thermeh, the ancient Themisciza, the fabled country of the Amazons, Samsoun or Amisus, and Sinope; which gave him an opportunity of observing the soil, climate, and produce. The author was desirous of going by land to Sinope,

but was prevented by a bloody battle being fought on the same day between the Turks and the inhabit ants of Djanik, a country of the Mosineeques and Chalybes. The bridge was broken, and the streets of Bafrar were full of the dead and wounded. He returned to the coast, whence the ship had sailed, but fortunately a Greek vessel took him on board, and landed him at Sinope. This ancient capital of the kingdom of Pontus, the country of Diogenes the Cynic, and Mithridates, is so well known, that we shall pass slightly over the traveller's description of it. He found there M. Fourcade, the French consul, a man distinguished for various acquirements, and whose premature death is still remembered with regret by the scholar, the geographer, and the antiquary. From Sinope he went by fand to Ineboli, and embarked for the celebrated town of Amastrah, where still exist the remains of a temple of Neptune, and the valley of Bartin, anciently Parthenius, which, though almost unknown or neglected, is a most fertile and picturesque country.

M. Jaubert next arrived at Heraclea, an inhospitable country, and dangerous to Europeans, of which he presents his readers with an interesting account from the pen of M. Allier de Hauteroche. He found at this place a forty-gun frigate, which in two days carried him to Tarapia, a town on the Bosphorus, where the French ambassador, General Sebastiani, was waiting for him; in the General's society he soon forgot his privations, his fatigues, and his misfortunes.

Here the narrative of M. Jaubert closes: it is full of simplicity and truth; and his descriptions are replete with energy and grace.

We will conclude by pointing out to the reader some very remarkable passages upon the manners, religion, usages, and actual state of civilization in this part of Armenia and Persia. Amongst others there are, the twelfth chapter upon the Armenians, the fourteenth upon the abominable superstitions of the Yézidis; the seventeenth and thirty-ninth upon the manners of the Persians, and the degree of confidence to be placed in their politeness, with a parallel