dangers appalled, no misfortunes depressed him; but his remarks are always rather the remarks of a trader than of a traveller. Wealth was his grand object; knowledge and fame things of secondary consideration. The former, however, he gained and lost; his reputation, though far less brilliant than that of many other travellers, remains to him, and will long remain a monument of what can be effected by persevering mediocrity.
FRANCOIS BERNIER.
Born about 1624.—Died 1688.
This distinguished traveller was born at Angers
about the year 1624. Though educated for the medical
profession, and actuated in an extraordinary
manner by that ardour for philosophical speculation
which pervaded his literary contemporaries, the
passion for travelling prevailed over every other; so
that, having prepared himself by severe study for
visiting distant countries with advantage, and taken
his doctor's degree at Montpellier, he departed from
France in the year 1654, and passed over into Syria.
From thence he proceeded to Egypt, where he remained
upwards of a year. In this country he assiduously
occupied himself in inquiries respecting the
sources of the Nile, the time and manner of its rise,
the causes and nature of the plague, and the fall of
that dew which is said to deprive its virus of all activity.
Being at Rosetta eight or ten days after this
dew had shed its mysterious moisture over the earth,
he had an opportunity, which had like to have cost
him dear, of discovering the absurdity of the popular
belief upon this subject. He was at supper with a
party of friends at the house of M. Bermon, vice-
