xviii INTRODUCTION. 



fome of my brother phyficians among their fellow-Chri^li- 

 ans at home. 



The rev. Mr Tonyn, the king's chaplain at Algiers, was 

 abfent upon leave before I arrived in that regency. The 

 Proteftant fhipmailers who came into the port, and had 

 need of fpiritual afliftance, found here a blank that was not 

 eanly filled up ; I mould therefore have been obliged to- 

 take upon myfelf the difagreeable office of burying the 

 dead, and the more chearful, though more troublefome one, 

 of marrying and baptizing the living; matters that were 

 entirely out of my way, but to which the Roman Catholic 

 clergy would contribute no ailiflance. . 



There was a Greek prieft, a native of Cyprus, a very ve- 

 nerable man, pad feventy years of age, who had attached* 

 himfelf to me from my firft arrival in Algiers. This man 

 was of a very focial and chearful temper, and had, befides, 

 a more than ordinary knowledge of his own language. I 1 

 had taken him to my houfe as my chaplain, read Greek 

 with him daily, and fpoke it at times whenT could receive 

 his correction and inftruction. It was not that I, at this 

 time of day, needed to learn Greek, I. had long un— 

 derftood that language perfectly ; what I wanted was the 

 pronunciation, and reading by accent, of which the gener- 

 ality of Englifh fcholars are perfectly ignorant, and to which 

 it is owing that they apprehend the Greek fpoken and 

 written in the x^rchipelago is materially different from 

 that language which we read in books, and which a few 

 weeks converfation in the iflands will teach them it is not. 

 I had in this, at that time, no other view than mere con- 

 venience during my paflage through the Archipelago, . 



whichi 



I 



