472 VARIOUS LETTERS letters or public documents written in that language, have been in vain sent to them for translation. What I have long considered as chiefly tending to diminish the desire of acquiring this language, is an opinion dogmatically asserted, and diligently propagated, that the Arabic of the East and West are so different from each other, as almost to form distinct languages, and to be unintelligible to the inhabitants of either of those regions respectively ; but, having always doubted the truth of this assertion, I have endeavoured, from time to time, during the last ten years to ascertain whether the Arabic language spoken in Asia be the same with that which is spoken in Africa, (westward to the shores of the Atlantic ocean, J but without success, and even without the smallest satisfactory elucidation, until the arrival in London termined never to write again to a Christian king in the Arabic language ; and, with regard to Great Britain, I believe he has faithfully ever since kept his word ! Some time before this letter was written, I being then in Marocco, the Emperor's minister asked me if the Emperor his master were to write an Arabic letter to the Sultan George Sultan El Ingleez, (these were his expressions,) whether there were persons capable of translating it into English: I replied, that there were men at the Universities capable of translating every learned language in the known world ; and accordingly the letter above alluded to was written in Arabic, and addressed to His Majesty. This letter was written by the Emperor himself, which I am competent to declare, having letters from him in my possession, and being acquainted with his hand-writing and style.