168 



LETTERS FROM PROFESSOR CARLYLE 



tion in different places, but I believe I did not acquaint you with the 

 circumstance, which above all others, though perhaps without reason, 

 tended to rivet my horrors. Upon quitting Cyprus, where the plague 

 raged violently, the Greek captain of our little vessel was seized, as 

 all on board believed, with the disorder ; for two days in which we 

 were shut up with him in the skiff, we expected his death every mo- 

 ment; he however recovered, and providentially no one else caught the 

 contagion. I confess, my Lord, I have been much disappointed in 

 being thus obliged to give up a favorite scheme, from which I had 

 expected considerable instruction, and for which I had taken some 

 pains to prepare myself. Since the time I wrote last to Your Lord- 

 ship, we have been almost constantly at Boyukdere, a beautiful village 

 on the banks of the Bosphorus ; the room I inhabit literally overhangs 

 the water, and I have a view from it only to be exceeded by the lake 

 of Keswick. 



My amusement when the heat of the weather would permit any ex- 

 ertion, (for we have had the thermometer in the shade as high as 97°, 

 with a sirocco besides, at which time we could only sit and try to 

 breathe,) has principally consisted in examining the shores of the 

 Bosphorus, the scenes of so much history and so much fable ; and my 

 employment, if I may confess it, has chiefly been reading Arabian ro- 

 mances. I trust, however, that this employment appears more trifling 

 in the relation than it is in reality, as I conceive it affords me the most 

 accurate notions of Oriental manners, and certainly gives me the best 

 examples of familiar language. 



I have the honor to be, &c. 



I. D. Carlyle. 



