BENGAZI. 293 had hitherto been actively employed, were relieved for a short time by their organs of speech, exerted in ill-suppressed whispers. From their gestures, and a word or two which we caught en passant, we could perceive that very few of the Arabs assembled believed a single word of our statement, (so far, at least, as the motives for the expedition were concerned ;) for they could not at all imagine why persons should be commissioned to make researches of such a nature as those which they had just heard proposed, where money was not in fact the real object of inquiry.

His excellency the Bey, though he received the statement graciously, and offered his assistance very freely in facilitating the operations of the mission, was scarcely himself convinced of the sanity of a government which could concern itself with science and research, particularly if no considerable pecuniary equivalent was likely to result to His Majesty’s treasury for the expenses incurred by its expeditions * This idea is so strongly rooted in Mahometans of all classes and descriptions, as to have called forth the animadversions of writers of their own persuasion. We find the following remarks on the subject, in the Account of Egypt by Abd-Allatif, which we give in the French version of Silvestre de Lacy.

“ Quand il ont aper§u des monumens d’une grandeur colossale, I’aspect de ces monumens leur a inspire la terreur ; ils se sont fait des idees sottes et fausses de la nature de ces restes de Tantiquite. Comme toutes les pensees de ces gens-la n’etoient occupies que de I’objet unique de leurs voeux, et de la seule chose qui eut des charmes pour leurs coeurs, je veux dire de I’or et de I’argent, ils ont eprouve ce qu’un poete a dit d’un buveur : “ Tout ce qu’il aperoit lui paroit un gobelet ; quand il voit quelqu’un, il croit toujours voir celui qui verse a boire.”

“ Ainsi tout ce qui paroissoit designer quelque chose a te, a leurs yeux, le signal d’un tresor cach6 : ils n’ont pas pu voir une ouverture pratiqu6e dans une montagne