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ENTERPRISE AND ADVENTURE.
51

medan manners, enabled him to assume the Mussulman character with such success that he resided at Mecca during the whole time of the pilgrimage, and passed through the various ceremonies of the occasion without the smallest suspicion having arisen as to his real character, a feat which has been imitated in our times by Captain Burton. Upon one occasion a Pasha, holding his head quarters at Sayf, near Mecca, thought proper to put the stranger's qualifications as a Mussulman to the test, by directing the two most learned professors of the law then in Arabia to examine him upon his knowledge of the Koran, and of the practical as well as doctrinal precepts of their faith; but the result appears to have been a complete conviction upon the minds of his hearers, or at least of the two examiners, of his being not only a true, but a very learned Mussulman. Important, however, as were the experience and information acquired by his journey in Arabia, they were too dearly purchased; for there is little doubt that his constitution never recovered from the effects of that climate so pernicious to Europeans.

When, at length, he found opportunities of starting upon the chief object of his travels, the exploration of the Nile, he quitted his Turkish dress, and attired himself in the blue gown of the merchants of Upper Egypt. He carried nothing with him for himself and his servant but a gun, a sabre, a pistol, a bag filled with provisions, and a woollen mantle, which served either for a carpet or a covering during the night. In one journey of nine hundred miles he took with him only eight Spanish dollars, of which he returned with three; five dollars, or about £1 15s. sterling, having defrayed the whole