LUCAS. 79 



fiWrt and drawers, and tattooed as much as the South Sea 

 islanders. He bids his correspondents, if they wish to see 

 Egyptian women, to look at any group of gipsies beliind a 

 hedge in Essex. The Mohammedans he describes as a 

 trading, enterprising, superstitious, warlike set of vaga- 

 bonds, who, wherever they are bent upon going, will and 

 do go ; but he complains that the condition of a Frank is 

 rendered most humiliating and distressing by the furious 

 bigotry of the Turks. It seemed inconceivable that such 

 enmity should exist among men, and that beings of the 

 same species should think and act in a manner so opposite. 

 By conversing with the jelabs, or slave-merchants, he 

 kameda good deal respecting the caravan-routes and coun- 

 tries of the interior. Every thing seemed ready for his 

 departure, and he announced that his next communication 

 would be from Sennaar ; but, on the contrary, the first 

 tidings received were those of his death. Some delays in 

 the departure of the caravan, working upon his impatient 

 spirit, brought on a bilious complaint, to which he applied 

 rash and violent remedies, and thus reduced himself to a 

 state from which the care of Rossetti, the Venetian consul, 

 and the skill of the best physicians of Cairo, sought in vain 

 to deliver him. 



The society had, at the time they engaged Ledyard, en- 

 tered into terms with Mr. Lucas, a gentleman who, being 

 captured in his youth by a Sallee rover, had been three 

 years a slave at the court of Morocco, and after his deliver- 

 ance had been employed as vice-consul in that empire. 

 Having spent sixteen years there, he had acquired an inti- 

 mate knowledge of Africa and its languages. He was sent, 

 by way of Tripoli, with instructions to accompany the ca- 

 ravan, which is understood to take the most direct route into 

 the interior of the continent. Being provided with letters 

 from the TripoUtan ambassador, he obtained the bey's per- 

 mission, and even promises of assistance, for this expedi- 

 tion. At the same time he made an arrangement with two 

 Shereefs, or descendants of the prophet, under which cha- 

 racter their persons are sacred, to join a caravan of which 

 they intended to make a part. He proceeded with them to 

 Mesurata; but the Arabs in the neighbourhood, being in a 

 state of rebellion, refused to furnish camels and guides, 

 which, indeed, could scarcely be expected, as the bey had 



