MONEA. 
33 
which for a time is ever present with the traveller, 
infusing itself into all his ideas and imparting a 
fanciful and dream -like want of reality even to his 
actions. Englishmen who visit the East, having 
previously confined their travels exclusively to their 
own quarter of the globe, find this effect protracted 
much beyond its ordinary duration, by the very strik- 
ing contrast existing between the characteristics of 
Asia and Europe, both in the climate, scenery, and 
people ; and it is again and again revived, after the 
outward appearance of the country has become fami- 
liar, by the peculiar properties which seem to distin- 
guish the common features of the scene from those 
of his home. I might extend the remark, with truth, 
I believe, even to the more subtle operations of nature, 
the produce of the country, and the works of the 
natives ; for scarcely a day passes without some 
strange and unexpected quality being discovered in 
one or other of them. It were needless to particu- 
larise ; a thousand instances will at once suggest 
themselves to the mind of the reader, or they may 
be found in the pages of every book of travels in the 
East; but the fact will be fully illustrated by the 
point upon which I am driving. 
The rivers, the rippling brooks, and headlong 
mountain torrents of old England continue for ages 
to run in their wonted courses, their utmost depreda- 
tions being an occasional overflowing of their waters, 
or the temporary shifting of their sands. The records 
