MONK OF NEGADE.

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me, he has received an account of his death from Siout. This gentleman is collecting copies of the hieroglyphics of Thebes and Lower Egypt, for his uncle, the famous Champollion: he reads the inscriptions fluently, and he tells me the most ancient monument in Egypt, having written characters upon it, is the large obelisk at Carnac, and that the inscription on it is some ages prior to the era of Moses.

At the village of Negadè, not far from Thebes, there is a Roman Catholic convent, tenanted by a single Monk, who is maintained there by the Propaganda. I went to the convent, intending to take up my abode there for the night, but the manners and appearance of the reverend gentleman were so disgusting, that I was obliged to change my determination. I had scarcely entered when he commenced pronouncing an anathema on the Copts (the inhabitants of the village were principally Copts); and I soon found out that the hostility of his reverence to his fellow Christians arose entirely from his missionary zeal. He failed in converting them, so he considered a superfluous malediction could not damn them a jot deeper; this is, at least, the most charitable

construction I can put upon his fury. Strange as it may appear, this feeling of hatred to those who refuse our good offices is natural to most men. Do not imagine its excess is peculiar to the Roman Catholic missionaries. Those of all churches in the East, I am sorry to say, I have every where observed to be intemperate in the expression of their inveteracy against such as resist their good intentions.

The German missionaries, the English missionaries, the American missionaries, all are so enthusiastic in their endeavours to draw "the nominal Christians" (for such they call them) of these countries from "ignorance and idolatry," that I have seen some of them, by dint of reviling false doctrines, fall into the natural error of hating those who believed in them. Messrs. McPherson, Muller, and Nicolaison are exceptions to this spirit of intolerance. I often wished, for the sake of the mild character of Christianity, that they had communicated a little of their gentleness and liberality to others.

But the reverend gentleman of Negade was certainly the most violent of all his brethren. He told me "a most excellent trick which he

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played on the Coptic Bishop of the town, a few days before :

"to

"I was resolved," said he, " to get rid of the Bishop, for having excommunicated two of his flock who attended my chapel. I went to the Cadi, who was a friend of mine; I had cured his wife of a pernicious fever, and he was bound to me for having done so. Effendi, said I, through the blessing of God (to whose name be glory), I once cured your wife of a grievous sickness. You said I was your friend; I now mean to put your friendship to the proof: I have just heard from Cairo, that his Highness, Mohammed Ali, has banished several Copts from Masrattik, on account of their superstitions, and for not having paid the taxes. Now, Effendi, if you have not yet received the imposts of Negadè, what is the cause? why it is this, the Bishop is a contumacious person, and he hinders the Rayahs from doing what they ought. Banish him, Effendi! and all will go well.

"The Casheff," continued his reverence, "swallowed the hook; the knave of a Bishop was sent about his business, and my friend, the Effendi

(prosperity to all his house), has since then been more friendly to me than ever."

This worthy Monk complained to me a good deal, of the nightly depredations which the "rascally Copts," "Copti scelerati," committed in his garden; they were in the habit, he said, of scaling the wall, breaking down his fences, and stealing his cabbages; "but you see that door below," he said, "I shot one of the scoundrels on the top of it; I watched the garden, from the chapel window, two nights running, with my doublebarrelled gun by my side, and when I discerned a head popping over the posts, I let fly at the robber, and sent two or three more balls in the same direction; I had the satisfaction of tracing drops of blood in the sand several yards from the door, but the fellow nevertheless got away."

On leaving the convent, I observed that the garden door was perforated by balls, in five or six places. I listened to the recital of the shooting of the cabbage stealer, and the banishment of the Bishop, with great calmness. I took my leave of his reverence, after inquiring about the convents in the neighbourhood, which I gave him to un

derstand my friend and myself were commissioned to relieve with money, by a most excellent and affluent Roman Catholic nobleman. We did not give him time to recover from his astonishment; the few words he spoke we drowned with our adieus; "Adio Signore Padre! adio! adio!" He pursued us to the boat; his convent, he said, was lamentably poor, and he had borrowed money from the Turks, to rebuild the altar; if we would only give him twenty dollars it would be something towards the support of religion.

"Listen to me, father," said I to him, " you shall not have twenty paras from us; for what security have we, that instead of devoting our charity to the true purposes of religion, you would not expend the money in purchasing powder to shoot your fellow Christians, for depriving you of a cabbage! what security have we, that our alms, instead of enabling you to live peaceably within the walls of your convent, would not furnish you with the means of carrying on your intrigues with the common enemy of all Christians; of banishing, perhaps, another bishop, and leaving another Christian flock without a pastor: not a single paras shall you have, my good father, and